Timeline of Earth-2 (1930s to 1940s)

1931

1933

Wesley Dodds, Clyde Dunlap, and Happy O'Shea are three Navy pilots known as the “Three Musketeers” for their camaraderie. Note: Much later, after Wesley Dodds becomes the Sandman, he makes his fellow former pilots aware of his secret identity, and together they become known as the Three Sandmen for a single case involving the murder of their fellow pilots. However, there is no evidence to suggest that they were ever known as the Three Sandmen until that 1939 case; rather, they were affectionately nicknamed the Three Musketeers during their days in the service. [Adventure Comics #42]

May, 1933

May 8: Superboy of Earth-1 accidentally crosses over to Earth-2 in the 1930s, over 30 years before his time. He meets the 16-year-old Clark Kent (actually, Kal-L is 17, but Clark is considered 16 until his birthday in June) of this world and teaches him how to use his super-powers. After Clark briefly joins the circus as the Masked Wonder, he decides to use his powers to help people, inspired by Superboy's example. Note: Story takes place specifically the day after FDR's Farm Relief Bill was announced, since a headline proclaims its announcement. [“Superboy Meets Clark Kent,” The New Adventures of Superboy #15 (March, 1981); “The Superboy Training of Clark Kent,” The New Adventures of Superboy #16 (April, 1981).]

1934

1935

Nabu the Wise completes his training of young Kent Nelson, who is now 27 years old and knows the secret of energy conversion into matter, and full molecular control of his body, with the powers of levitation and telekinesis. Nabu then commands Kent to unleash his full power against him, which Kent does once the grief of his father's death is restored to him, and Nabu's physical form is destroyed, leaving behind only the Lord of Order. Before disappearing, Nabu presents Kent with the golden Cloak of Healing, the Helm of Nabu, and the Amulet of Anubis, to act from this day forth as Doctor Fate. At Nabu's insistence, Doctor Fate flies to Alexandria, Egypt, before returning to the United States. Discovering a windowless, doorless tower in the middle of the Egyptian desert, Doctor Fate finds within Nabu's thousands-of-years-old enemy Wotan, who has captured American college student Inza Cramer, vacationing in Egypt before returning to Columbia University, having sensed that she is connected to his destiny in some way. Doctor Fate and Wotan battle for the first time as equally matched foes, and Fate is defeated. But before Wotan can deliver the final killing blow, Inza's tears revive the unconscious Kent Nelson, who then gains the full power of Nabu as Doctor Fate and disintegrates Wotan, then supposedly sends his atoms into a remote dimension (this is later revealed to be a ruse by Wotan, who later recovers through his own molecular control and returns to Earth). After also destroying the tower, Fate plans to wipe Inza's memory of these events, until she convinces him that he needs her in order to retain his humanity. Inza thus becomes Kent Nelson's companion, assisting him regularly on his cases, and they return to New York City. It is later revealed that Doctor Fate was always meant to be the union of Kent Nelson and Inza Cramer, but Nabu's desire for control corrupted him, so that he did not tell Kent the truth, and instead began exerting control over his body more and more each time Kent donned the Helm of Nabu, with the consequence being that Inza grows more and more distant with Kent over the decades. Doctor Fate's nicknames include the Man of Magic and the Man of Mystery. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #67 (May, 1941); “Dr. Fate,” First Issue Special #9 (December, 1975); “This Immortal Destiny,” DC Special Series #10 (1978); “The Secret Origin of Dr. Fate,” All-Star Squadron #47 (July, 1985); “Doctor Fate: Fate Revealed, Chapter 1: Demonstrations and Hard Truths”]

Having been trained in many disciplines by Nabu, Kent Nelson is able to undergo an accelerated course of learning at university, where he studies both medicine and archeology, and soon enters medical school. Suspecting that Wotan may return and try to hurt Inza, Doctor Fate keeps his cases secret from the public for the next five years until their next meeting, using magic to remove people's memories of him as needed. For Inza's protection, Fate eventually even removes her knowledge of his secret identity of Kent Nelson, which she does not discover again until February, 1941. As Nabu takes more control over Kent, Doctor Fate eventually leaves university to reside in the doorless, windowless Tower of Fate north of Salem, Massachusetts, forcing him to rely upon Inza Cramer even more for research and information-gathering. Note: This is speculation, based on the “15 years” comment in First Issue Special #9, and the fact that Kent would need several years of medical school prior to his career as Doctor Fate, in order to later complete his studies and become a doctor of medicine. [“Dr. Fate,” First Issue Special #9 (December, 1975)]

Spring, 1935

July, 1935

Doctor Occult and Rose Psychic have first public case as paranormal detective agency. [New Fun #6]

October, 1935

A bookish historian named Oliver Weed meets a portly scientist named Uriah Mowcher, inventor of a time machine. Together, along with a boy stowaway named Fritz, they travel 100 years back in time to 1835. The time machine has the strange effect of altering clothing to fit the time period. Weed, Mowcher, and Fritz each meet and immediately fall in love with women in that era. Note: Weed's fate remains unknown, since this serial was never completed. [“The Strange Adventures of Mr. Weed,” New Comics #1-4]

1936

The archeologist Indiana Jones uncovers the Ark of the Covenant. [Raiders of the Lost Ark]

Steve Carson of the Federal Men meets a Federal Man of the future called Jor-L.

The jade lantern constructed by the blacksmith Chang is found by Terry Lee and Pat Ryan as they track the pirates of the China seas, and is brought to America, where eventually it is left outside Arkham Asylum, just north of Gotham City. [Secret Origins #18]

Lee Travis joins the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight for the revolutionaries in the Spanish Civil War, but he is shot in the leg three days in and sent home. [“Secret Origins: The Crimson Avenger,” Secret Origins v2 #5 (August, 1986)]

December, 1936

Slam Bradley has first public case as adventurer. [Detective Comics #1]

Cyril “Speed” Saunders has first public case special operative in a unit of the river patrol. [Detective Comics #1]

1937

Archeologists Ian Karkull and Everett Dahlen embark on an archeological expedition in the Sahara, where they discover the lost city of Ragnor, thought to be only a legend. Coveting a giant ruby above a throne, Dahlen and Karkull fight over it until Dahlen manages to knock out Karkull and steal away with the ruby, which he uses to build his fortune. Recovering consciousness sometime later, Karkull realizes that Dahlen has taken the camels and water with him and left him to die. After agonizing days of survival in the desert, Karkull is finally rescued by nomads, and returns to civilization where he begins planning his revenge on Dahlen, using a mixture of science and sorcery he learned while in Ragnor. Note: The exact year that this occurs is unknown. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #69 (July, 1941)]

February, 1938

April, 1938

Lee Travis inherits The Globe-Leader newspaper after his godfather Winston Smythe dies of a heart attack at the age of 55. Note: Smythe actually fakes his death at this time to found the Dark Cross, a group of war profiteers. [“Secret Origins: The Crimson Avenger,” Secret Origins v2 #5 (August, 1986)]

May, 1938

Clark Kent graduates from Metropolis University with a degree in journalism.

June, 1938

June 11-18: Clark Kent moves to Metropolis, becomes Superman, and gets a job as a reporter for the Daily Star, whose editor-in-chief is George Taylor. Superman also first meets Daily Star reporter Lois Lane in both identities. In his first major cases, Superman brings Bea Carroll to justice for the murder of Jack Kennedy and ends a civil war in the South American nation of San Monte. [1st story, Superman #1 (Summer, 1939); Superman, Action Comics #1 (June, 1938)]

Tex Thomson has first public case as a cowboy/adventurer. [Action Comics #1 (June, 1938)]

August, 1938

August 11: After he saves her life, Lois Lane kisses Superman for the first time and declares her love for him. [Superman, Action Comics #5 (October, 1938)]

Rex Darrell becomes Flying Fox. [More Fun Comics #37]

September, 1938

Jimmy Olsen begins working at the Daily Star as an office-boy. Note: The office-boy seen in this story is unnamed and appears in several stories before he is finally given a name. Jimmy Olsen would later grow up to become first a cub reporter, then a famous reporter, and finally the editor of the Daily Star. [Superman, Action Comics #6 (November, 1938)]

October, 1938

October 9-12: Superman becomes a circus strong-man for a brief time in order to help the Jordan Circus get out of debt. [Superman, Action Comics #7 (December, 1938)]

On Halloween night, Lee Travis – 25-year-old publisher of The Globe-Leader newspaper – becomes the Crimson Avenger, using a Halloween costume of a highway robber to stop a gang of robbers pretending to be green-skinned Martians during Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds on the radio. He is assisted by his chauffeur, Wing How, who was born in China but raised in New York City from childhood, who is the only man who knows Lee is the Crimson Avenger. But the police believe the Crimson, as they think he's called, to be the leader of the gang and seek his arrest. Lee does not become the Crimson Avenger again until December. Note: Although the Crimson Avenger's first appearance is in Detective Comics #20 (October, 1938), the events of Secret Origins v2 #5 and The Crimson Avenger #1-4 take place before that appearance. [“Secret Origins: The Crimson Avenger,” Secret Origins v2 #5 (August, 1986)]

November, 1938

November 8: Superman first becomes wanted by the law after he completely destroys Metropolis' slums in order to force the government to step in and build new, huge apartment projects to replace the old run-down buildings. Police Chief Burke vows to capture Superman, even though he agrees with Superman's actions off the record. [Superman, Action Comics #8 (January, 1939)]

December, 1938

December 7-8: The hunt for Superman comes to a head after Police Chief Burke hires a famous Chicago officer named Detective Captain Reilly, who uses unethical means such as announcing a fake $5,000 reward for Superman's capture, then flees town after he fails to follow through with his promise to capture Superman within two days.

December 7-17: Lee Travis becomes the Crimson Avenger once more, this time to stop a group of war profiteers known as the Dark Cross, whom he discovers are led by his supposedly dead godfather, Winston Smythe. The Crimson Avenger gains a gas-gun from the Dark Cross, which he adds to his arsenal of crime, and his regular adventures start from here on. Lee Travis offers a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and capture of the Crimson, who is believed by the public and the law to be nothing more than a masked criminal. Note: Even though this story is published after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, it falls in line with the origin story from Secret Origins v2 #5 and provides the origin for the Crimson Avenger's gas-gun. It is possible that the gas-gun was developed from experiments made by both Lee Travis and Wesley Dodds during college. After this story, the brunette Sally Ann Stevens, Travis' secretary, dyes her hair blonde. Wing How occasionally but rarely wears a Lone Ranger-type mask along with his chauffeur's uniform while assisting the Crimson Avenger in his cases. Lee Travis hires on Wing How as his live-in servant, and Wing becomes his most trusted confidante. [“The Dark Cross Conspiracy,” The Crimson Avenger #1-4 (June, 1988-September, 1988)]

1939

January, 1939

February, 1939

Superman uses the new identity of Homer Ramsey to buy up (with his own life savings) all the worthless stock of the Black Gold oil well sold to naive investors by crooked brokers Meek &amp; Bronson, then travels to the oil well out west and drills for oil overnight. After the well strikes oil, the price of the shares skyrocket, and Superman earns $1,000,000 from selling the shares back to Meek &amp; Bronson, before finally destroying the oil well and setting it on fire to teach them a lesson. [Superman, Action Comics #11 (April, 1939)]

Power Girl is sent back in time from 1986 by Per Degaton's malfunctioning time machine and battles a new villain called Moon Man. She meets Superman and takes the identity of Lightning Girl and the secret identity of Clara Kent, Clark's cousin from Gotham City. After the two capture Moon Man, Power Girl returns to 1986. [“Power Girl: Kara's Quest, Chapter 4: Superman and Lightning Girl”]

After fellow reporter Charlie Martin is killed in a hit-and-run outside the Daily Star building, Superman declares war on reckless drivers by issuing a warning on the radio, destroying every traffic violators' car in an impound lot, destroys every car in a notorious used-car lot, scares a drunken driver, destroys the manufacturing plant of the Bates Motor Company, and brings the mayor himself to the morgue to view the mangled bodies of auto accident victims, causing the mayor to tighten up all restrictions for both vehicles and drivers in order to make the roads safer. [Superman, Action Comics #12 (May, 1939)]

March, 1939

Jay Garrick, a science student at Midwestern University, has an accident with a chemical composition he calls hard water and is knocked unconscious and hospitalized for several weeks. When he is discharged from the hospital, he discovers that he has super-speed. [Flash Comics #1 (January, 1940)]

Superman prevents ex-heavyweight boxing champion of the world Larry Trent from committing suicide, then determines to help win his title back after he learns how his crooked manager drugged him for a crucial fight in which he lost the title. Keeping Trent at a second apartment he rents for emergencies, Superman impersonates Larry Trent and goes on to fight about a dozen fights over the next few months, leading to the world heavyweight championship fight. Meanwhile, he begins training Trent to get him back into peak fighting form. [1st story, Superman #2 (Fall, 1939)]

Ted Knight (the future Starman) discovers cosmic energy, which provides him with tremendous power, but he lacks any way to harness it.

April, 1939

Superman first encounters the Ultra-Humanite, a bald, crippled scientist in a wheelchair whose super-intelligent brain is the result of a scientific experiment, and whose goal is domination of the world. Ultra is the head of a vast ring of evil enterprises, including the Cab Protective League, and Superman has frequently interfered with his plans before this time. Although Ultra seems to die in a plane crash, he actually manages to escape, and Superman encounters him frequently over the next few months. [Superman, Action Comics #13 (June, 1939)]

Jay Garrick reveals his super-speed to Joan Garrick, then uses it to help win the last football game for Midwestern University. [Flash Comics #1 (January, 1940)]

Bruce Wayne graduates from Gotham University and has first public case as the Bat-Man. [Detective Comics #27; Secret Origins]

June, 1939

Superman raises $2,000,000 to keep Kidtown from going bankrupt, first by donating the $1,000,000 he earned from his sale of the Black Gold oil well shares, then by collecting rewards, and finally by recovering a treasure chest filled with gold in a sunken Spanish galleon. [Superman, Action Comics #15 (August, 1939)]

Disappearance of Nadir, Master of Magic (strangled into unconsciousness and abducted in the cliffhanger of his last appearance) [New Adventure #30]

June 8-9: Wesley Dodds has first public case as the Sandman in New York City, facing the Tarantula and exposing the faked kidnapping of actress Vivian Dale. [The Sandman, Adventure Comics #40 (July, 1939); [“The Sandman: 1939: Idle Hands”]

June 9-10: The Sandman and the Crimson Avenger save England's King and Queen from being killed by the Phantom of the Fair, while learning each other's secret identities. Johnny Chambers (the future Johnny Quick) and Tubby Watts are present to capture on newsreel film the royal visit and the attempted assassination as their first newsreel assignment for Sees All/Tells All News. Note: Although this story heavily implies that it is Wesley Dodds' first outing as the Sandman, it actually follows his first case, that of the supposed kidnapping of Vivian Dale by the Tarantula. The gas-gun that Lee Travis lends to Wesley Dodds is not the same one that the Sandman developed himself, but a study of it allowed Dodds to improve his own gas-gun. [“The Secret Origin of the Golden Age Sandman,” Secret Origins v2 #7 (October, 1986); [“Secret Origins: The Phantom of the Fair: 1939: The High Price of Failure”]

July, 1939

Jay Garrick becomes the Flash for the first time, fighting crime in Philadelphia. [Flash Comics #1 (January, 1940)]

After Superman fought all the fights leading to the world heavyweight boxing championship fight for him, the re-trained Larry Trent wins the fight and becomes world heavyweight boxing champion once again. [1st story, Superman #2 (Fall, 1939)]

August, 1939

Superman ends a civil war in the European nation of Boravia, then destroys a formula for a gas that can penetrate any gas-mask. [Superman Champions Universal Peace, Superman (Fall, 1939)]

Superman encounters the Ultra-Humanite a third time after investigating an extortion scheme. [Superman, Action Comics #17 (October, 1939)]

After the murder of three former pilots in the U.S. Navy Air Force, Wesley Dodds recruits the help of his old comrades Dr. Clyde Dunlap and Happy O'Shea, who are aware of his secret identity as the Sandman. Together, the Three Musketeers, as they were once known six years earlier, don matching gas masks and become the Three Sandmen. Each flying his own plane, the Three Sandmen stop a crooked ex-Navy pilot called Teeter from killing their friend, pilot Steve Weber. [The Sandman, Adventure Comics #42 (September, 1939)]

After Joan Williams' father is kidnapped by Sieur Satan and his Faultless Four, the Flash battles them in Keystone City and frees Major Williams. Garrick decides to relocate to Keystone City, which is near Philadelphia. [Flash Comics #1 (January, 1940)]

Chic Carter has first public case as crime reporter. [Smash #1]

September, 1939

An unnamed Polish aviator's family is killed by Nazi Captain Von Tepp during the German invasion of Poland; he becomes Blackhawk and forms a group of international aviators called the Blackhawks over the next several months. [Military #1]

Johnny Thunder first uses the Thunderbolt in New York City. [Flash Comics #1]

Rodney Elwood Gaynor becomes the Whip. [Flash Comics #1]

Hank Heywood, a Princeton bio-chemistry student, joins the Marines after returning from Germany and learning of the German invasion of Poland. [“From Hell is Forged a Hero,” Steel, the Indestructible Man #1 (March, 1978)]

September 26: Superman displays x-ray vision and telescopic vision for the very first time during a case while tracking down a notorious gangster named “Big Mike” Caputo. Note: This is a text story. Superman also displays x-ray vision in Action Comics #18, which takes place immediately after this story. [4th story, Superman #2 (Fall, 1939)]

October, 1939

On Earth-X, Darrell Dane invents a serum that causes him to shrink to six inches tall. He becomes the Doll Man. [The Dollman, Feature Comics #27 (December, 1939)]

Hank Heywood is caught in an explosion caused by the Nazi saboteur called Baron Death and nearly killed. At Heywood's request, Dr. Gilbert Giles begins an experimental procedure to make him into a cybernetic man, half-human and half-robotic. [“From Hell is Forged a Hero,” Steel, the Indestructible Man #1 (March, 1978)]

Wesley Dodds is shot and nearly killed in his own home by the Face, a master of disguise masquerading as a police officer. He is bedridden for about two weeks while in recovery. [The Sandman, Adventure Comics #44 (November, 1939)]

October 7-17: Metropolis is overcome by the Purple Plague, a highly contagious, fatal disease similar to the Black Plague of the Middle Ages. Superman discovers that the Ultra-Humanite has developed the Purple Plague in an attempt to begin wiping out the human race so he can start a new human race of his own. Finally, a young scientist named Prof. Henry Travers discovers a cure for the Purple Plague after trial and error of many days, and the still-living victims of the Purple Plague are cured. Confronting the Ultra-Humanite, Superman apparently kills Ultra when he pulls the mad scientist into the path of his own ray-gun, intended for Superman. [Superman, Action Comics #19 (December, 1939)]

October 28: The Sandman confronts the Face, who apparently drowns in a river, though no body is recovered. [The Sandman, Adventure Comics #44 (November, 1939)]

November 20: Ted Knight begins collaborating with Prof. Abraham Davis, a scientist and inventor who learns about him through Ted's first cousin, Sandra Knight. Together, over the next year, the two men develop the gravity rod as a way to harness and use the cosmic energy that Ted discovered earlier this year. Seeking to downplay his chief role in the development of the gravity rod, as part of his bored playboy routine, Ted later claims that Prof. Davis created the gravity rod on his own. Prof. Davis goes on to introduce Ted to Albert Einstein and other scientists, and Ted participates in scientific discussions during the early research efforts in the development of the atomic bomb over the rest of this year and next.

December, 1939

An accident causes a scientist named Dr. Moag to become Mineral Master, able to control the Omega Field, thus reshaping inorganic matter to his will. Steel battles him and defeats him by breaking his contact with the earth. [“The Monster Who Mined Miracles,” Steel, the Indestructible Man #2 (April, 1978)]

December 24-25: Rex “Tick-Tock” Tyler successfully completes his Miraclo formula – gaining enhanced strength, speed, invulnerability, and even vision – and takes it on a test run for one hour wearing a circus acrobat costume. That night, Tyler also experiences the drug's severe after-effects but is determined to purify the formula to eliminate its addictive qualities. The next day, Tyler places an ad in the newspaper classifieds offering to help the oppressed. He spends the next week modifying the acrobat costume and obtaining an hourglass to time the effects of Miraclo. [“The Secret Origin of the Golden Age Hourman,” Secret Origins v2 #16 (July, 1987)]

December 31: On New Year's Eve, Rex Tyler has his first public case as the Hour-Man in New York City, when he fights a gang of criminals looting the Beaux Arts Ball. [The Hour-Man, Adventure Comics #48 (March, 1940); “The Secret Origin of the Golden Age Hourman,” Secret Origins v2 #16 (July, 1987)]

1940

January, 1940

On Earth-X, an inventor and former U.S. Navy Captain Jim Lockhart names himself the Red Torpedoafter his unique submarine. He stops a German U-boat from sinking a ship full of refugees escaping wartorn Europe. [Crack Comics #1]

On Earth-X, the Black Condor (Richard Grey, Jr.), who was raised by unusually intelligent vultures, has first public case bringing Gali Kan to justice in Hindustan after traveling the world for a few years. [Crack Comics #1]

On Earth-X, playboy Tom Hallaway becomes a crime-fighting vigilante called the Spider (Alias the…). He is assisted by a tough guy named Chuck. [Crack Comics #1]

Steel battles Andrew Hawk, a former silent film star now transformed into a monster. [“A Scream in the Night,” Steel, the Indestructible Man #5 (October-November, 1978)]

Hop Harrigan gains worldwide notoriety after he rescues a group of Chinese refugees from a disaster in Alaska, and when he returns to New York City, he is given a ticker-tape parade. [Hop Harrigan, All-American Comics #12 (March, 1940)]

January 13: Wesley Dodds encounters the cat burglar known as the Lady in Evening Clothes when she breaks into home to crack his safe. She explains her name is Diana (Dian) Ware, and she was brought up by Slick Deacon, the best safecracker in the business, who taught her everything she knows. A crook named Black Bill Trent told Dian that if she broke into Dodds' safe, she would learn who her true parents are. Wesley dares her to crack his safe, and she successfully does so, then amazes him by telling Wesley she knows he is the Sandman. Dian asks for the Sandman's help to learn the identity of her father, and he agrees in exchange for help rounding up Trent and his gang. She is later revealed to be District Attorney Larry Belmont's long-lost daughter, Dian Marie Belmont, thought dead as an infant along with his wife in Chicago two decades ago, and she takes the surname of Belmont. Wesley and Dian begin a romantic relationship, and she also acts as his aide during cases. Note: It is never explained how Dian learns the Sandman's secret identity. Dian has an uncle in Chicago and an Aunt Agatha. [“Lady in Evening Clothes,” Adventure Comics #47 (February, 1940)]

February, 1940

Steel saves First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill from assassination by the Nazi agent called the Black Assassin. Then Steel parachutes into Poland with a group of British commandos with the objective of kidnapping Adolf Hitler. Steel is captured and imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp run by the Butcher. After they discover that he is a cybernetic man, Steel in attempting to escape grabs a bottle of acid. A prisoner then throws the bottle at the Butcher's face, disfiguring him. Steel attempts to kill the visiting Adolf Hitler but is knocked out and imprisoned. The Butcher is transformed through a series of experimental procedures based on Steel's own cybernetic structure into Baron Blitzkrieg. [“Super Soldier,” Cancelled Comics Cavalcade: Steel, the Indestructible Man #6; “Afternoon of the Assassins,” All-Star Squadron #8 (April, 1982); “Should Old Acquaintance Be Destroyed,” All-Star Squadron #9 (May, 1982)]

February 23: When Police Detective Jim Corrigan is murdered by gangster “Gats” Benson in Cliffland, Ohio, he is given the opportunity by the Voice to return to the Earth and become an avenger with supernatural powers. After Corrigan saves his debutante fiancee Clarice Winston from Benson, he leaves Benson and his chief lieutenant in a catatonic state, then breaks off his engagement with Clarice, reasoning that a dead man cannot marry a living woman (although he still continues to see her regularly). Corrigan also leaves the apartment at the boarding house he shares with his best friend, Police Detective Wayne Grant, and gets his own apartment. Donning a green hooded cape and shorts, with a white bodysuit, Corrigan becomes the Spectre. The Cliffland police consider the Spectre a criminal and typically blame him for all crimes that appear to be supernatural, resulting in Corrigan being assigned to bring the Spectre in. Unknown to Corrigan at this time, he has actually been bonded with the spirit of vengeance, who grants him supernatural abilities, although it won't be for a few years until he realizes that he and the Spectre are separate persons, since he is in complete control of the Spectre's supernatural body. Detective Corrigan works out of the Third Precinct (or Thirteenth Precinct). The Spectre's nicknames include the Dark Knight, the Man of Darkness, the Grim Ghost, and the Black Knight. Note: Cliffland is located in Ohio, since it is based on Cleveland, Ohio. Although All-Star Squadron #51 places Cliffland in New Jersey across from New York City, All-Star Squadron #27 clearly places Cliffland on the banks of one of the Great Lakes. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #52 (February, 1940); The Spectre, More Fun Comics #53 (March, 1940)]

March, 1940

On Earth-X, in a Midwestern town called Glen Valley, an old shopkeeper named Samuel who speaks out against a terrorist group called the Black Legion is found by the spirit of Uncle Sam, who joins with him to gain a physical body and fight injustice asUncle Sam, possessing super-strength, invulnerability, super-speed, and occasional mystical powers. Uncle Sam defeats the Black Legion and rounds them up for the police. ["The True Story of Uncle Sam," National Comics #5 (November, 1940); Uncle Sam, National Comics #1 (July, 1940)]

On Earth-X, when the corrupt French Foreign Legion commander Cracket sends a troop of Legionnaires into the desert to die, Tom Corbet is the only survivor. Discovering an oasis with a pool of strange, phosphorescent water, Tom drinks of it and gains great strength and neonic power, enabling him to perform amazing feats, such as matter transmutation, energy blasts, heat, and flight. Using those powers to becomeNeon the Unknown, he discovers the plans of a millionaire named Morgan Crookes, who has rallied the tribal people of Africa, South America, and Australia together to conquer the world from several secret bases hidden in the jungles of those continents. Neon the Unknown leads the Foreign Legion to destroy these bases, along the way battling the tribal armies, which are equipped with modern planes and armaments. [Neon the Unknown, Hit Comics #1 (July, 1940)]

On Earth-X, Richard Raleigh, an assistant D.A. in District Attorney Darrow office in Superior City, becomes the Red Bee, a fighting man assisted occasionally by trained bees, one of which is named Michael. The Red Bee helps the D.A. bring down Boss Storm, a corrupt political boss who has controlled city politics for decades. //Note: D.A. Darrow is also called Hawkes. Superior City is located on the Eastern Seaboard, not the Great Lakes area, and thus is not located on Lake Superior as some suggest.// [The Red Bee, Hit Comics #1 (July, 1940)]

From this point on, the Crimson Avenger sometimes begins wearing a wide-brimmed red hat instead of his original blue hat, as well as a longer red cloak over a red business suit, and long yellow gloves instead of short gloves. Around this time, the police and the public alike begin to suspect that the Crimson is a masked vigilante rather than a mere masked criminal. [The Crimson Avenger, Detective Comics #38 (April, 1940)]

March 23: The Sandman and Dian Belmont encounter Dr. Alphonzo Faversham, a mad scientist who has invented a process to turn men into hulking, mindless giants. Note: This story takes place less than a year ago before it is told, on a night with a full moon. [“The First Meeting of the Justice Society of America,” All-Star Comics #3 (Winter, 1940)]

Hourman is framed for a series of robberies when a fellow chemist Bob Wallace is turned into another Hourman by Dr. Snegg in order to lure the hero to him. Hourman clears his name by saving the Mayor. [The Hour-Man, Adventure Comics #52 (July, 1940)]

On Earth-X, an ordinary lineman named Tom Dalton is electrocuted by 10,000 DC volts, then shocked back to life by 10,000 AC volts, causing him to gain powers, including magnetism, super-strength, and telescopic vision. He uses those powers to becomeMagno, the Miracle Man. In his first public case, he foils the plans of German agents to capture an American ship. [Magno the Miracle Man, Smash Comics #13 (August, 1940)]

On Earth-X, Lanford "Happy" Terrill, reporter for The Daily Globe, a New York City newspaper, gains super-powers in an accident that turns him into the Ray, possessing the powers of traveling along light beams, magnetism, teleportation, and even some powers to transform objects. It's possible that the Ray's powers are only limited by his imagination, although he is weakened by darkness and regains his powers through external light. [The Ray, Smash Comics #14 (September, 1940); Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #1]

April 3: While pursuing criminals after their attempted murder of Jim Corrigan, the Spectre encounters Zor, a spirit confined to Earth who has spread evil over the world for centuries, and whose power rivals that of the Spectre. The first battle between the two spirits ends in a draw, until Zor disappears and decides to threaten the Spectre by impersonating Corrigan and kidnapping his former fiancee Clarice Winston. Appealing to the Voice to save Clarice, the Spectre is granted the power to pursue Zor through the dimensions until he finds Zor's castle. Within, the Spectre is nearly trapped for an eternity, until he tricks Zor into falling into his own trap, then frees Clarice and brings her back to Earth. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #55 (May, 1940)]

May, 1940

Having materialized anew in America, Wotan searches for Inza Cramer and, eventually finding her through someone she'd known while at Columbia University in New York City, hypnotizes a man into killing her. When Doctor Fate saves Inza's life, he realizes that Wotan has returned, and he and Inza confront him in his hidden citadel in a New York skyscraper. During the battle, Fate manages to drain Wotan's own power into himself, causing Wotan to become mortal once more, then throws him out a window to his presumed death. In order to confirm that Wotan is truly dead, Doctor Fate and Inza Cramer then travel to the land of the dead, where they learn from Wisdom that Wotan is not only alive but is planning to destroy the world through arcane science, since his supernatural powers have not yet been restored. Wisdom sends Fate and Inza back to Earth near Wotan's mountain laboratory. When Wotan attempts to use the magnetic power of the Earth's poles to cause the world to explode in a revenge scheme, Fate draws all power out of Wotan's device, then overpowers Wotan and imprisons him unconscious in an air bubble beneath the earth. Now that Wotan is captured, from this point on Doctor Fate no longer keeps his activities secret, and begins acting openly. Note: It is evident from subsequent adventures that Inza Cramer is no longer a university student by this time, and has presumably graduated. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #55 (May, 1940); Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #56 (June, 1940); “The Secret Origin of Dr. Fate,” Secret Origins v2 #24 (March, 1988)]

The Crimson Avenger battles an unnamed mad scientist with a ray gun able to create a paralyzing field of electricity down a street, enabling a gang of bank robbers to strike without resistance. [The Crimson Avenger, Detective Comics #40 (June, 1940)]

Hourman smashes a child labor ring at Tareff's factory, where 12 children died under mysterious circumstances, including Billy Martin. Hourman saves Billy's brother Jimmy Martin from gangsters working for Tareff. With the help of Jimmy Martin and Regina Bannerman (Mr. Bannerman's niece), the Hourman shuts down the factory and forces its owner to sell to an honest businessman, ending its child labor practices. Hourman and Jimmy Martin form the Minute-Men of America, a club of boys communicating through ham radio. Jimmy, the club's captain, becomes known as Minute-Man Martin. Note: Hourman's home city is identified in this story as Appleton City, although in other stories it is New York City, and issue #55 it is called Cosmos. [The Hour-Man, Adventure Comics #53 (August, 1940)]

Zor tricks world-renowned scientist Dale Ericks into building a dimensional transporter to free him, only for Ericks to be trapped in Zor's castle for eternity. Zor returns to Earth to get his revenge, framing Jim Corrigan for the murder of a rival police detective named Dexter, by hypnotizing Wayne Grant into believing he saw the murder with his own eyes. When Zor arrives to gloat, he and the Spectre battle throughout the cosmos, but Zor's greater experience gives him an edge in the battle. Zor saves a murderer named Pedro Gonzales from death by hanging, then sends him off to kidnap Clarice Winston. When the Spectre attempts to save her from being thrown down a waterfall, Zor prevents him from reaching her. Appealing to the Voice for help, the Spectre is instructed to find a substance called ectobane, which wards off evil. Flying to the distant country of Lugania, the Spectre gathers ectobane trees and forms them into a coffin, which overpowers Zor when he brings it to him. Then the Spectre causes time to reverse itself, saving Clarice. After stopping the murderous Pedro by turning him into a tree, the Spectre then imprisons Zor in the ectobane coffin, sending him off to drift aimlessly throughout the universe. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #57 (July, 1940)]

June, 1940

The man known as the Unknown Soldier has first case. [Unknown Soldier #249]

Hourman meets Thorndyke Tompkins, a newspaper boy who is a member of the Minute-Men of America. Note: Thorndyke is pictured but not named in this story. [The Hour-Man, Adventure Comics #54 (September, 1940)]

July, 1940

Johnny Thunder, now a boxer known as the Human Thunderbolt, wins a Fourth of July bout with the leading heavyweight boxing challenger. His girlfriend Daisy Darling proposes that they get married right away, as long as he quits boxing. In his next fight, Johnny tries to throw the fight, but unknown to him the Heavyweight Champion also throws the fight (after secretly betting all his money on Johnny winning), allowing Johnny to win and become the new Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World. Daisy breaks off the engagement, and Johnny never fights in the ring again. After saving Daisy Darling from her kidnapper, Johnny is hired by the FBI as a G-man. [Johnny Thunderbolt, Flash Comics #3-4]

The Crimson Avenger loses his wide-brimmed red hat during a battle with a gang leader in Chinatown named Hop Lin, and he decides to replace his bulky costume for a form-fitting one. [The Crimson Avenger, Detective Comics #43 (September, 1940)]

A great wizard, possibly from England, recovers the Lost Book of Thoth from its burial place beneath the River Koptos in Egypt, granting him enough supernatural power to destroy the world. After the wizard attempts to kill Inza Cramer in an attempt to decrease Doctor Fate's power, Fate tracks down the wizard in England, where he has supernaturally hypnotized wealthy men into giving him all their money. Doctor Fate seizes the book from the wizard's grasp and knocks him out, causing the wizard to fall to his death. Fate then destroys the Lost Book of Thoth with atomic power. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #58 (August, 1940)]

The Crimson Avenger dons a new form-fitting red and yellow costume with a fin on his cowl, with a smaller mask and a red cape, that is inspired by Superman's and Batman's costumes. [The Crimson Avenger, Detective Comics #44 (October, 1940)]

July 18: The Spectre encounters Oom the Mighty, an ancient mystical monster of bronze who roamed the Earth untold ages ago in search of violent death, and who has now returned to kill people during every full moon after resting for millions of years in a distant corner of the universe. Oom makes a bargain with the Spectre to give the fate of the Earth to whoever first brings back the Red Moon Stone of Yzgartyl, while the other must leave forever. But Oom betrays the Spectre by sending a dragon after him, then seizing the Red Moon Stone himself. After the Spectre manages to wrest it from him by making it too hot to handle, then returns to the Earth with it, Oom refuses to honor the bargain and leave. After a brief battle that the Spectre wins, he forces Oom to stand atop a pedestal, then removes Oom's spirit and traps it within the Red Moon Stone of Yzgartyl, which he tosses into outer space. [“The First Meeting of the Justice Society of America,” All-Star Comics #3 (Winter, 1940)]

August, 1940

Hourman battles a mad scientist named Dr. Slight, who runs a circus of crime that performs sabotage, and who transforms humans into bald, dwarf-like creatures who do his bidding. [The Hour-Man, Adventure Comics #56 (November, 1940)]

August 9: Doctor Fate and Inza Cramer encounter extraterrestrials from another galaxy who land on Earth in the South Pacific after many years of traveling through space. After the aliens draw a ship toward them out of curiosity, then start killing people with strange globes when they try to defend themselves, Doctor Fate investigates their spaceship and deduces that the force of the globes is pure electricity, allowing him to destroy the globes. To keep the aliens from retrieving more globes, Fate destroys their spaceship, fights the aliens, and frees the ship. The aliens die soon afterward, unaccustomed to breathing air with so much oxygen in it. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #59 (September, 1940)]

September, 1940

When he is framed for the supposedly supernatural theft of a train containing a large shipment of gold bullion, the Spectre investigates and discovers that the theft was accomplished by advanced science commanded by a villain called Xnon, who wears a metallic costume and commands a power rod capable of incredible scientific feats capable of challenging the supernatural. Appealing for help to the Voice, the Spectre is given the Ring of Life – a magical ring with power over life and death that disappears and reappears as needed – allowing him to resist Xnon's command to commit mass murder, then overcome Xnon's scientific prowess and defeat him. The Spectre condemns Xnon to imprisonment and eventual death within a meteor. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #60 (October, 1940)]

When an invasion force of tiny men equipped with a flying ship and powerful guns invade New York City, causing panic, Doctor Fate destroys them, and he and Inza Cramer track down their creators to a cave in the Catskills. There they encounter three giants in a cave in the Catskills whom Fate identifies with the Norns or the Fates, and Fate removes their power to create life, then traps them within the cave. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #60 (October, 1940)]

In return for archeologists profaning his tomb, Kulak, high priest of Brztal, attempts to destroy modern civilization through the whispering death, which causes people to turn against each other in hatred, followed by a plague of locusts. When the Spectre stops Kulak's plans, the two battle until the Spectre uses his Ring of Life against Kulak, briefly gaining the upper hand. Kulak fights back with legions of the undead of Brztal while causing the Earth's oceans to rise, until the Spectre manages to cause Kulak to be overcome by his own incantation by breaking it midway through, then puts the world's oceans back where they belong. [The Spectre, All-Star Comics #2 (Fall, 1940)]

On Earth-X, radio announcer Dave Clark becomesMidnightin Big City when he learns that the Carleton Construction Company has been building with inferior concrete, causing an apartment building to collapse and then the Tri-State Dam. Midnight brings Morris Carleton to justice and decides to keep up his mystery-man act. Midnight also meets Rod Reilly briefly at Carleton's party. [Midnight, Smash Comics #18 (January, 1941)]

Johnny Thunder is fired from the FBI after he unwittingly aids a female spy's escape, so he decides to become a costumed mystery-man known as the Thunderbolt, wearing a costume sewn by his mother. As the Thunderbolt, he captures the spy known as La Belle Tartes. [Johnny Thunderbolt, Flash Comics #7]

Hourman battles Dr. Togg, based on Wide Island, who commands a group of intelligent, flying hybrid creatures created from wolves and buzzards, which he calls the Gombezi. [The Hour-Man, Adventure Comics #57 (December, 1940)]

October, 1940

Discovering a strange globular being threatening the Earth by nullifying its orbit, hurling it away from the sun by enough degrees to cause the Earth to become cold, Doctor Fate destroys the globe-being with an atom-shatterer found on Uranus. Warned by astronomers that more globe-beings are heading for Earth from another galaxy, Doctor Fate destroys these globe-beings as well, then tracks down their point of origin to a free-roaming pirate planet. Destroying the cannon the globe men use to launch globe-beings at the Earth, Doctor Fate then hurls the entire planet into a nearby star, destroying the planet and all life upon it. Returning to Earth, Fate learns that a mad scientist in the Andes Mountains pulled the pirate planet toward them with a new invention, so he kills the scientist and destroys the device. Note: Doctor Fate is especially bloodthirsty in this story, killing hundreds, thousands, or even millions of aliens by destroying an entire planet. It is likely that the cone-headed aliens known as the globe men in this issue are the same aliens seen only in space-suits in the Doctor Fate story in More Fun Comics #59, who also used globes as weapons, and likely sought revenge for the deaths of their fellows. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #61 (November, 1940)]

After helping Ted Knight complete a prototype of the gravity rod, Dr. Abraham Davis is kidnapped by Doctor Doog of the Secret Brotherhood of the Electron, abruptly ending his collaborative work with Ted. Disheartened by Davis' strange disappearance, Ted abandons his own work on the gravity rod, which remains unfinished for the next six months. Ted also takes ill around the same time, leaving him sickly for several months and requiring him to stay at the Elmswood Sanitarium in Opal City for an extended stay. [“The Amazing Starman,” Adventure Comics #61 (April, 1941)]

The Crimson Avenger battles a large, man-shaped golden robot called the Echo, invented by a criminal scientist named Jon. Ironically, when Jon orders the Echo to kill, he ends up being killed by the Echo, who throws him out of a window. Then the Crimson orders the Echo to throw himself out of the window as well. Note: It is possible that Dr. Robert Crane and Chuck Grayson, who later invented the Robotman, were able to study the remains of the Echo and read his creator's notes, implementing it into their own research. [“The Echo,” Detective Comics #49 (March, 1941)]

October 16: Dian Belmont impersonates the Sandman and saves both Wesley Dodds and his secret identity when it is discovered by a gang of criminals who kidnap him. [The Sandman, Adventure Comics #56 (November, 1940)]

October 16: The Spectre stops an alchemist named Gustaf Gilroy, who murders people by changing them into gold and impersonates the Spectre in a blackmail scheme. When Gilroy attempts to kidnap Clarice Winston, Jim Corrigan captures him but is unable to stop him from swallowing a pill that turns himself into gold. Note: Gilroy is later restored with the help of a fellow alchemist named Zobar Zodiak, as revealed in Justice Society of America: Times Past, 1943: Acts of Vengeance. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #61 (November, 1940)]

October 16: Criminal scientist Raymond Rall sends a horde of Metal Men – powerful, invulnerable robots of his own invention – to attack the coastal defense unit. Then the Metal Men attack New York City, Boston, and other coastal cities, firing bombs at buildings and causing widespread terror. Doctor Fate cuts off the radio signals controlling them, then magnetically draws the Metal Men into the ocean to rust. Following the radio signals back to their source, Doctor Fate enters Rall's laboratory, only to be blasted by electricity from his lightning maker until Fate kills the mad scientist with flame. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #62 (December, 1940)]

November, 1940

The Spectre battles the Crime Lord, who turns out to be the disembodied brain of Dexter, a volunteer test subject for Prof. James Fenton's experiment, which causes an ordinary living brain to grow physically larger, granting it great powers of intellect and mental control. The “ultra-brain,” as it is called, takes over Cliffland's criminal gangs and has them kidnap President Roosevelt, then orders his men to kill the president before the Spectre can rescue him. The Spectre blocks the bullet with his body, saving the president's life, then returns to Fenton's laboratory to capture the ultra-brain. Prof. Fenton, having recovered his mind moments before the ultra-brain is about to kill him, shatters the jar the brain is kept in. Instead of killing it, the ultra-brain instead starts to rapidly expand, and maniacally threatens to keep growing until it has outgrown the world and even the universe, forming appendages to fight off attackers. The Spectre kills the ultra-brain with rays from the Ring of Life, but before it dies, it lashes out and kills its creator, Prof. Fenton. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #62 (December, 1940)]

The Sandman learns of an unnamed mad scientist's plot to throw the planet Earth out of its orbit using an atom-smasher, and he stops him with the help of his niece, a blonde woman named Phoebe. [The Sandman, Adventure Comics #57 (December, 1940)]

Haldane the Sorcerer, a master of magic who carries the wand of the high priest of Marzduk the mighty, and has a book containing the secrets of Zoraster, starts turning people into stone to gain a treasure. In order to kill Doctor Fate, Haldane summons an eldritch horror from the depths of space that takes all of Fate's power to banish. When Haldane threatens Inza Cramer, Fate knocks the sorcerer out a window to the crashing waves below, where he supposedly dies. Note: It is evident that the dread horror from space is meant to be Cthulhu-like menace like those seen in H.P. Lovecraft stories, and is never actually pictured in the story. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #63 (January, 1941)]

November 9: Sir William Stephenson of British Intelligence requests help from President Roosevelt to thwart an invasion of Britain, but while the United States cannot officially intervene, Roosevelt suggests sending a group of mystery men there and makes plans to contact them. [“The Untold Origin of the Justice Society,” DC Special #29 (August-September, 1977)]

November 16-17: Batman, the Flash, and Green Lantern are summoned together and sent to Scotland to learn intelligence of the impending invasion of Britain by Nazi Germany, but they are defeated by a robot called the Murder Machine and sent immediately to Berlin. There, Adolf Hitler himself attempts to kill them with the Spear of Destiny, but Doctor Fate intervenes, bringing along Hourman. When Hitler uses the Spear to summon a group of Valkyries led by Gudra, Fate summons the Sandman, Hawkman, the Atom, and the Spectre to assist. Together, they thwart the invasion of Britain. Then they prevent the bombing of Washington, D.C., by an experimental long-range bomber with the help of Superman. The Atom saves FDR's life by taking a blow from Gudra's spear meant for the President. Roosevelt suggests that the mystery men remain together as a team, and Superman suggests the name of the Justice Society of America. Superman and Batman decline full-time membership, instead becoming honorary members. The team makes plans to hold their first meeting the very next Friday. [“The Untold Origin of the Justice Society,” DC Special #29 (August-September, 1977)]

November 22: Johnny Thunder (and, briefly, the Red Tornado) crash the first meeting of the Justice Society (Atom, Doctor Fate, Flash, Green Lantern, Hourman, Sandman, Spectre; Superman and Batman abstain and become honorary members) held on Friday, November 22nd on the ninth floor of a New York City hotel (rented by Wesley Dodds), at which each member tells the story of a perilous case he was involved in. [“The First Meeting of the Justice Society of America,” All-Star Comics #3 (Winter, 1940)]

November 26: At the request of FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover, the members of the Justice Society move against fifth columnists seeking to destroy America from within on behalf of the Axis powers. Each of the JSA members discover that the leader of the fifth columnists is Fritz Klaver in Toledo, Ohio, and converge at his headquarters, along with Johnny Thunder. Together, the Justice Society captures Klaver and the whole band of traitors, delivering them to the FBI. Note: According to All-Star Comics #1, this story begins the very next Tuesday, which is November 26. [“For America and Democracy,” All-Star Comics #4 (March-April, 1941).]

December, 1940

Lando, Master of Magic has first public case [World's Best #1]

1941

January, 1941

Hourman and the Minute-Men of America fight a gang of crooks using two large animated models of a Tyrannosaurus Rex to commit crimes. [The Hour-Man, Adventure Comics #61 (April, 1941)]

The fish-men of Nyarl-Amen return after 50,000 years in an attempt to restore their domination over the world, beginning with attacking and capturing the Pearl Harbor Naval Base at Hawaii while wielding tridents that shoot bolts of lightning. Doctor Fate subdues the fish-men with fire, then destroys the underwater city of Nyarl-Amen, killing all life within. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #65 (March, 1941)]

On Earth-X, rookie patrolman Chuck Lane becomesthe Jesterin New York City. As the direct descendant of a real court jester, Lane took his mystery-man gimmick from his ancestor. [Smash Comics #22]

The Spectre battles huge, ravenous monsters when they attack Cliffland, Ohio, but falls prey to green eye-beams that paralyze him. Trailing them back to an art museum, the Spectre enters the world of a painting populated by monsters who desire life in the physical world. After escaping from the world in the painting, the Spectre burns the painting to destroy the gateway to reality. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #66 (April, 1941)]

January 13: A crook named Tusker McGinn attempts to replace Dian Belmont with a double named Sally so that he can spy on District Attorney Larry Belmont. The Sandman stops the plot and has Dian fingerprinted at police headquarters to prevent such an occurrence from succeeding. [The Sandman, Adventure Comics #60 (March, 1941)]

January 23: The Sandman battles a foreign scientist named Ivan Borloff, who uses an invention called the Cylindecraft with a purple ray that can dissolve metal, but which can be counteracted with sand. For the first time, the Sandman uses his new wirepoon, a gun that fires a light, strong cable attached to a sharp needle that buries itself deeply, allowing him to use it to scale walls and travel across rooftops. [“The Menace of the Metal Gun,” Adventure Comics #61 (April, 1941)]

February, 1941

John Sargent becomes Sargon [All-American Comics #26]

The Crimson Avenger stops wearing a cape with his form-fitting red costume from this point on in most cases, though once in a while he still dons a cape. [The Crimson Avenger, World's Finest Comics #2 (Summer, 1941)]

Hourman fights the League, a group of five or six wealthy young playboys committing robberies for excitement. [The Hour Man, Adventure Comics #63 (June, 1941)]

February 12: Doctor Fate unmasks to Inza Cramer for the first time since 1935, revealing himself to be Kent Nelson and telling her he'll explain his origins soon. From this point on, Inza becomes Kent's companion as well as Fate's. Over time, Kent Nelson begins to cultivate the identity of a wealthy socialite, with Inza as his guide. Note: Since Inza does not remember ever seeing Doctor Fate without his helmet, it is evident that Fate must have erased her knowledge of him at some point after their initial meeting. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #66 (April, 1941)]

March, 1941

When the entire populations of the cities of Lakespur and Brent City are killed by a deadly gas, the Spectre discovers that a new planet has entered Earth's solar system. In the next target, Clareville, the Spectre stops the little, big-headed green aliens from releasing a killing gas in the city but is temporarily paralyzed by a green ray. Trailing after the aliens' sky-sleds to their planet, he learns that the aliens plan to steal the essence of life from Earth in order to replenish their own. The Spectre causes a distant star to draw the planet toward it until he is resisted by the combined mental might of the green men and temporarily paralyzed. The green aliens then attack Earth en masse in their sky-sleds, killing everyone in Memphis Beach and taking over the city. Returning to Earth, the Spectre destroys much of the sky-sled fleet, forcing the green men to retreat to their planet. The Spectre pursues them to their planet, this time unaffected by their attack, and draws all the aliens into a ball of X-Lite as their crypt, then sends the planet back into space. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #68 (June, 1941)]

Hourman battles the mad scientist Dr. Hans Iker's creations, gray-colored beings pulled out of the Fifth Dimension in the form of small elves. One is larger and identical to Iker himself but gray, called Normo, who accidentally destroys the machine and thus himself and the other creatures. [“The Little Men Who Weren't There,” Adventure Comics #64 (July, 1941)]

After a series of strange deaths, Jim Corrigan learns that each of the men who died were members of the Crimson Circle Mystic Society, a cult run by a sorcerer called Bandar who collects hefty fees from its members and controls them hypnotically, killing anyone who tries to leave. The Spectre battles Bandar on the astral plane, defeating him with the Ring of Life, then destroys Bandar's body before he can return to it. Note: This story takes place out of sequence, since it must take place before All-Star Comics #5, in which the Spectre loses his Ring of Life. At some point after this story, Bandar gains another body. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #70 (August, 1941)]

Mister X, the mysterious mastermind of a large American crime syndicate, sends the various gangs at his command in an aggressive operation against the individual Justice Society members. The Spectre loses his Ring of Life; unknown to him, it is drawn toward his old enemy Kulak, high priest of Brztl. [All-Star Comics #5; “By Hatred Possessed,” All-Star Squadron #28 (December, 1983)]

Hourman battles Doctor Darrk and his assistant Nan, who uses a black ray ring that render objects invisible (much like the black-light ray later used by Phantom Lady). Hourman also fights Darrk's robot, Giganto. When Darrk makes himself and Nan invisible to escape, Hourman throws a bottle of acid at him to make him reappear. Note: The Radio Squad is mentioned in this story. [The Hour Man, Adventure Comics #65 (August, 1941)]

March 13: The Sandman and Dian Belmont battle the Unseen Man, an art shop owner who has discovered a way to become invisible through an external application of chemicals. [“The Unseen Man,” Adventure Comics #64 (July, 1941)]

April, 1941

Ted Knight, newly recovered from his months-long illness, witnesses Batman and Robin in action while having dinner with his girlfriend Doris Lee in Gotham City. Several days later, he meets his cousin Sandra Knight in Washington, D.C., who shows him her laboratory, filled with inventions by Prof. Abraham Davis (now missing for six months), including a prototype black-light ray and the prototype gravity rod that he developed with Prof. Davis' assistance. After three days of work, Ted figures out how to successfully power the rod with cosmic rays, and he decides to become the mystery man called Starman, spending the next several days designing and creating a costume. He also decides to keep up his pretense of being sickly in order to preserve his secret identity. [“Catch a Falling Starman,” All-Star Squadron #41 (January, 1985)]

Sandra Knight prevents the kidnapping of her father, Senator Henry Knight, and is referred to as a “phantom lady,” inspiring her to become a mystery-woman. [Freedom Fighters #15]

On Earth-X, chemist Roy Lincoln of Washington, D.C., son of a famous explosives expert, assists his father to create a new super explosive 27-QRX. Nazi agents kill his father, and he ingests the explosive capsule, gaining invulnerability and the power to cause explosions with his hands, and becomes the mystery-man known as the Human Bomb. After he discovers that the German Consul is behind the murder of his father, he uses his explosive power to kill him. [Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)]

On Earth-X, having an hour to spend before a meeting, Daily Star reporter Joan Dale falls asleep at the foot of the Statue of Liberty and wishes for the power to do good; then the spirit of liberty herself (which is actually USA the Spirit of Old Glory) grants Joan the magical power of transmuting anything or anyone and several other magical powers, such as teleportation and imbuing personalities into objects she's transformed. Joan becomes the patriotic mystery-woman known asMiss America, originally acting in an ordinary red dress. [Miss America, Military Comics #1 (August, 1941)]

Hourman, with the help of the Minute-Men of America, exposes a corrupt mayor who is in cahoots with Big Benny, the crooked political boss of that town. Months later, Hourman witnesses the low-rent Hour Man Apartments being opened, replacing a crime-ridden slum. [The Hour Man, Adventure Comics #66 (September, 1941)]

With the Flash becoming an inactive JSA member to devote more time to his solo cases (GL becomes chairman), Johnny Thunder crashes his going-away party and petitions to be allowed to join. The other members concoct their version of a snipe hunt, in which Johnny is to apprehend “Killer” McPanzee, ostensibly a dangerous criminal but in reality a rather timid old coot. [“The Justice Society of America Initiates Johnny Thunder,” All-Star Comics #6 (August-September, 1941)]

April 12: After a series of electrical outages plagues the East Coast, FBI agent Woodley Allen (Doris Lee's uncle) contacts Starman just outside New York City to stop the Brotherhood of the Electron and its leader, Doctor Doog (“good” spelled backwards). Starman frees Prof. Abraham Davis (kidnapped six months ago for his invention called the Ultra-Dynamo), who gives him his blessing to use the gravity rod without realizing Starman is his fellow collaborator Ted Knight. Immediately after his first case as Starman, Ted formally proposes to Doris Lee, who becomes his fiancée. Starman primarily operates in New York City at this time, but he also has his ancestral home in Opal City and another residence in Washington, D.C. Starman's nicknames include the Astral Avalanche, the Astral Avenger, the Astral Crime-Crusher, the Astral Man, the Astral Traveler, the Crime-Crusher of the Constellations, the Crimson Cavalier, the Crimson Crime-Crusher, the Dark Knight, the Man of Night, the Mystery Man of Night, and the Scarlet Scourge. Note: When he tells his story later on to Jonathan Law, Ted Knight omits the fact that he and Abraham Davis created the gravity rod together in order to harness the cosmic energy that Ted had discovered, since he wanted to downplay his own scientific background. The next story indicates that Ted and Doris have become formally engaged by then. [“The Amazing Starman,” Adventure Comics #61 (April, 1941); “Catch a Falling Starman,” All-Star Squadron #41 (January, 1985)]

April 12: Criminal scientific wizard Ian Karkull perfects a shadow-maker machine that can transform a human into shadow and back again with a materializer beam. When he sends a criminal in shadow form to murder his old partner, Everett Dahlen, Doctor Fate tracks him down just as Karkull is sending his shadow men to rob a bank, but Karkull incapacitates Fate with a beam of transareal power. When Fate recovers and defeats his gang, Karkull turns himself into a shadow to hide, but is trapped in that form when Fate destroys the machine that can return his material form. Shortly after, Wotan (who is still trapped underground) astral projects his soul to the upper world, where he encounters Ian Karkull in his shadow form. With Karkull's help, Wotan is freed from his prison through an incantation. Wotan and Karkull then travel to the Arctic Circle, where they begin building strange weapons to attack the world from their base, a domed city. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #69 (July, 1941); Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #70 (August, 1941)]

April 12: On Earth-X, Sandra Knight saves her father, Senator Henry Knight, from would-be kidnappers who call her a "phantom lady." Sandra Knight soon begins adventuring as a costumed mystery-woman calledPhantom Lady, using a black-light ray invented by a scientist-friend of her cousin Ted Knight. Her love interest is Don Borden, a State Department investigator. In her first case as a costumed mystery-woman, Phantom Lady saves a bomb inventor named Raphael from Wenner, a man who planned to steal his uranium explosive and sell it to foreign powers. [Phantom Lady, Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)]

April 12-19: On Earth-X, Criminal "Eel" O'Brien is shot and doused with acid at the Crawford Chemical Works, and discovers his body has become completely pliable and elastic, allowing him to stretch and become any shape at will. He decides to fight crime with his powers and becomes the mystery-man known asPlastic Man. In his first case, he captures his old gang, led by Skizzle Shanks. [Plastic Man, Police Comics #1 (August, 1941)]

Johnny Thunder becomes the guardian of a ten-year-old girl orphan named Peachy Pet, whom Johnny's parents help raise. Note: Since Peachy Pet goes into the sixth grade this year, she's most likely ten years old. However, Roy Thomas claimed she was five years old in the All-Star Squadron series, which may be correct considering that Peachy never reached her teens in the Johnny Thunder series in the 1940s. [Flash Comics #21]

The full membership of the Blackhawks and first chronicled appearances start. [Military #1]

Rodney Reilly becomes Firebrand I. [Police #1]

The JSA meets western gunfighter John Tane, alias Johnny Thunder, and rescue his wife, Jeanne Walker Tane, alias Madame .44, who has remained unaging for 50 years after being possessed by an occultist named Lucius Bender, known as Hell-Bender. Tane is also made young once more through a spell cast by the Spectre and Doctor Fate, allowing the two to spend the rest of their lives together. [“Justice Society of America: Times Past, 1941: Thunder at Sunset”]

Meeting an explorer named Bob Walker whose Arundel Expedition to the Arctic last year was completely wiped out by a powerful wind, Doctor Fate discovers that his arch-foes Wotan and Ian Karkull have teamed up to conquer the world from their domed city in the Arctic. After Fate and Inza Cramer are captured, Wotan remotely destroys a ship with a ray as an example. Walker and a group of men attack the domed city, and after a brief battle Wotan unleashes flames of energy, resulting in the destruction of the domed city and the supposed deaths of Wotan and Karkull. In reality, they are thrown into a nether dimension. Note: Since Karkull was only turned into a shadow the previous month, and was in the form of a shadow when he released Wotan, those two couldn't have been behind the destruction of the Arundel Expedition, since it took place last year in 1940. Possibly the domed city in the Arctic was built by Wotan sometime in the 1930s or earlier, and already housed many of his scientific weapons. This is more reasonable than the idea that Wotan and Karkull not only built a domed city, but also built an array of weapons and recruited a gang within the span of a month. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #70 (August, 1941)]

Hourman has a bizarre, paranoid dream (possibly a side effect from months of Miraclo use) about a being called Doctor Wizen, who takes him into outer space and back, and who controls Mr. Bannerman. [The Hour Man, Adventure Comics #69 (December, 1941)]

May 10: The Sandman and Dian Belmont capture a mad scientist named Edgar Edley, whose Cometiray can attract or repel any object, and which allow him to become a young man of 30 years old again. [The Sandman, Adventure Comics #66 (September, 1941)]

May 10: Starman battles a disgraced scientist calling himself the Light, who is using a diminishing ray that can shrink people to exact his revenge on his former colleagues. Doris Lee meets Starman for the first time. The Light ends up shrinking to a smaller-than-visible size when his reducing ray is turned upon him, but this is a ruse enabling him to escape. [Starman, Adventure Comics #62]

May 11: After the United States is struck by a series of earthquakes, Starman discovers they were caused by a Nazi agent named Captain Vurm, who uses his long-distance shock machine in South America to cause earthquakes thousands of miles away, in order to set the stage for a German invasion of America. After Vurm falls to his death, Starman rescues Woodley Allen and Doris Lee and helps them escape before the plateau containing the machine collapses, destroying it. Note: Ted Knight has a servant named Jeeves. [“The Adventure of the Earthquake Terror,” Adventure Comics #63]

Hourman battles Globe-o and Dodo, twin green-clad dwarfs who fly around on a magic carpet made out of a special wire created by Bert Izzel, whom they had captured a month earlier. Note: This is Hourman's last independent case until 1942. It is possible that, like issue #69, the dwarfs in this story are at least partially a drug-induced hallucination caused by one of the unexplained side effects of Miraclo, as mentioned in All-Star Squadron Annual #3. [The Hour Man, Adventure Comics #70 (January, 1942)]

An Arizona-based criminal scientist named Adam Igorovich uses an invention to stop the rotation of the Earth around the sun for several hours, leaving the Western Hemisphere drenched in sunlight and the Eastern Hemisphere in the darkness of night. When Igorovich demands a ransom from world leaders or else he'll pull the Earth toward the Sun, Doctor Fate stops him, and Igorovich destroys himself and his laboratory in an attempt to kill Fate. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #71 (September, 1941)]

June 7: Starman battles the Staring-Eye Bandits, a gang of hypnotized thugs with incredible strength and climbing ability, secretly led by a hooded man who is unmasked as Prince Ahmed, the toast of New York City society. [“The Mystery of the Men with the Staring Eyes,” Adventure Comics #64]

June 8: The Sandman and Dian Belmont face a mad scientist named Prof. Josephus Doombie, who has created an elixir of size that can cause someone to shrink to a mere fraction of their original size. [“The Man in Miniature,” Adventure Comics #67 (October, 1941)]

June 9-10: Starman battles the League of the Octopus, which has begun preying on American ships, and discovers it is led by his old enemy the Light, whom he captures this time. [“The Mystery of the Undersea Terror,” Adventure Comics #65]

June 27: At the behest of the conscience-stricken Green Lantern, the Justice Society pledge themselves to raise a million dollars for children orphaned by World War II. Johnny Thunder himself pledges to raise $300,000, but has no idea how he will do it. [All-Star Comics #7 (October-November, 1941)]

June 28:

The Justice Society, along with non-members, defeat Ian Karkull, who bathes most of them with mystical radiation, retarding their aging. Green Lantern takes leave of absence and becomes an honorary member, Hawkman becomes the chairman, Hourman takes leave of absence in order to find out how to remove side effects from Miraclo use, and he temporarily retires as a mystery-man. Starman applies to join the Justice Society in Hourman's place and is invited to the next JSA meeting. [All-Star Squadron Annual #3 (1984)]

Kent Nelson, realizing that Nabu is attempting to fully possess and control him as Doctor Fate through the Helm of Nabu, places the Helm aside. He and Inza Cramer create a half-helmet, using from this point on the powers he was taught to use by Nabu rather than the full spectrum of Doctor Fate powers that Nabu possesses. [All-Star Squadron Annual #3 (1984); “When Fate Thy Measure Takes,” All-Star Squadron #23 (July, 1983)]

The Crimson Avenger, long known as an outlaw vigilante, works alongside the police for the first time after his secret identity of Lee Travis is framed for grand theft. [The Crimson Avenger, Detective Comics #57 (November, 1941)]

July, 1941

July 8: At the Justice Society of America's monthly meeting, Starman (who was invited as a new member) and Doctor Mid-Nite (who arrives with information on a rash of insanity) win their spurs as new members when the Justice Society, in their individual cases, are stymied when important witnesses seemingly go insane with a strong fear of light. The JSA battle Professor Elba, who is secretly Prof. Able, secretly manipulated into committing his crimes by the Brain Wave (Dr. Henry A. King) in his first foray against the JSA. The JSA meet Dr. King without knowing who he is, and he places a posthypnotic command into all JSAers minds to come when he summons them. [“Two New Members Win Their Spurs,” All-Star Comics #8 (December, 1941-January, 1942); “For the Dark Things Cannot Stand the Light,” All-Star Squadron #20 (April, 1983)]

July 6-11: Starman battles an occultist named Cuthbert Cain, who uses a camera to make men his slaves, including FBI troubleshooter Woodley Allen. As he attempts to make Starman his slave, Cain accidentally takes a picture of himself and disappears, apparently dead. [“The Case of the Camera Curse,” Adventure Comics #66 (September, 1941)]

Richard “Buck” Dare becomes Captain X of the R.A.F.

July 21-28: J. Edgar Hoover calls on the Justice Society again, this time to ask their help in routing out Nazi and Fascist spies in Mexico and South America. J. Edgar Hoover voted in as Associate Member of the JSA. Note: Dian Belmont's appearance in this story means that it takes place before her supposed death in August, 1941. [Justice Society of America, All-Star Comics #9 (February-March, 1942)]

August, 1941

Arthur Curry becomes Aquaman. [More Fun Comics #73]

Oliver Queen and Roy Harper have first published case as the team of Green Arrow and Speedy. Green Arrow is also nicknamed the Wizard Archer. Note: An untold case called “The Case of the Golden Mummy” takes place shortly before this case, suggesting that Green Arrow and Speedy have been active for weeks before this story. [More Fun Comics #73]

Greg Sanders becomes the Vigilante. The Vigilante's nicknames include the Western Warrior. [Action Comics #42]

August 5-6: While the vacationing Ted Knight and Doris Lee are visiting Gigantic Cave in Kentucky, Woodley Allen summons Starman after files are stolen from his FBI office by invisible men. In the meantime, Doris and a group of other tourists are trapped by an avalanche in the cave, and when Starman goes to rescue them, he encounters the gang of invisible men, called Living Shadows, and is captured. Their leader, the Mist, attempts to kill the unconscious Starman by throwing him into a very deep pit. The Mist explains to Doris that, during World War I, he tried to sell his inviso-solution to the U.S. but was refused and scoffed at, prompting him to pursue his revenge now that another war has begun, by selling U.S. secrets to the Axis. After Doris refuses to join him, he throws her into the same pit, where Starman saves her after being revived by the air. Starman then goes after the Mist's invisible bombers, which have been sent to destroy America's industrial centers, but Doris is captured once more, and the Mist forces her onto his spaceship. The Mist attempts to kill Starman, who instead enters the ship, knocks out the Mist, and rescues Doris before it crashes to the ground, supposedly killing the Mist. Note: The Mist's full name, Kyle Andrew Murphy, is left unrevealed until the 1980s. The Mist is able to become invisible only at this time; it is not until the 1960s that he has developed the additional ability to become intangible. [“The Menace of the Invisible Raiders,” Adventure Comics #67 (October, 1941)]

August 7: Jonathan Law, an author researching his next book, meets Dian Belmont, who shares with him a sketch of an unused costume idea for the Sandman, and Law has his housekeeper Olga Clatterbuck sew a costume based on it and becomes Tarantula. Dian dons a spare original Sandman outfit to stop a group of saboteurs, but she is apparently killed. Witnessing what seems to be the Sandman's death, Tarantula fights the same saboteurs. Then the real Sandman shows up in the yellow and purple costume designed by Dian. Sandman and Tarantula realize that Dian was in the other Sandman costume and was killed. Tarantula has his first official case soon afterward. At Dian's grave, Tarantula witnesses the Sandman vow to keep wearing the outfit she designed for him, and the Sandman and Tarantula reveal their secret identities to each other. Note: Dian Belmont's subsequent appearance in All-Star Comics #15 means that she did not die and instead recovered from her wounds over the next couple of years; probably the Sandman faked her death temporarily, although nobody remembered to tell Tarantula about it. [“Vengeance from Valhalla,” All-Star Squadron #18 (February, 1983); “The Origin of Tarantula,” All-Star Squadron #66 (February, 1987); Star Spangled Comics #1]

August 7: Doctor Fate encounters Mister Who, an elderly, crippled criminal scientist who uses a miracle serum Solution Z to become a young, healthy man. The man who would become Mister Who was born a cripple and struggled to earn a living. Making enough money to go to college, he studied the sciences in search of a cure for his condition. After many years, he finally created Solution Z after modifying extractions from crawfish and insects that can regrow limbs and adapt to nearly any situation, such as growing to the size of a giant with proportional strength, developing new powers to survive, or altering his appearance. Mister Who supposedly dies during their confrontation by drowning, but actually survives by gaining the attributes of a fish. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #73 (November, 1941)]

August 8: While Ted Knight and Doris Lee are still vacationing, now staying at a lakeside resort called Lumber Peak Hotel, Starman stops a blazing fire from destroying acres of timber in the north woods, then stops the forest fire sabotage gang from setting any more fires. But K-17, the leader of the gang, is secretly a wealthy friend of Ted and Doris named Bill Baxter, who kidnaps Doris in order to lure Starman to him. Just as Starman finds the captured Doris on a boat, Baxter sets off a bomb that nearly kills them both, but the lunar rays unleashed when the gravity rod is smashed keeps them from exploding. Despite having no gravity rod, Starman tracks down the gang and captures Baxter, revealed by his actions to be a saboteur for the Axis. Note: Starman later repairs the gravity rod in his laboratory from memory. [“The Blaze of Doom,” Adventure Comics #68 (November, 1941)]

Wesley Dodds is driving through New England to locate Dian Belmont's nephew Sanderson McGann Hawkins, when he encounters a giant bee. Changing into his new yellow and purple costume with a cape as designed by Dian, he meets a blond teenage boy named Sandy wearing a yellow and red costume modeled after his own (possibly also based on Dian's original design). Together, they battle a giant, mutant, intelligent queen bee and save its creator, a scientist named Buttsford. Then the Sandman, knowing that the masked Sandy is Sanderson Hawkins, offers to let him become the Sandman's crime-fighting partner, Sandy the Golden Boy. Wesley later takes in Sandy as his ward. Note: It's probable that Dian Belmont had planned to Sandy into the Belmont household, but was unable to before her accident, so Wesley does so instead, supposedly to honor her last wishes, as if she were truly dead. [“The Case of the Giant Bees,” Adventure Comics #69 (December, 1941)]

September, 1941

Wonder Woman becomes Diana Prince and has first public case in Washington D.C. [All-Star Comics #8]

After escaping death, Mister Who replaces the mayor of New York City by using Solution Z to alter his appearance to look like the mayor, but Doctor Fate arrives in time to save the real mayor. In order to defeat Fate, Who creates an antidote to Solution Z in the form of a gas that temporarily removes Fate's powers, allowing Mister Who to impersonate the mayor and loot the city treasury. After he recovers, Fate defeats Who and delivers him to the mayor's office to be arrested. Note: In this story, Doctor Fate is wearing a crystal ring (presumably made of materials from his crystal ball) that warns him that someone is in trouble nearby. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #74 (December, 1941)]

The nefarious Hand, a self-professed “Napoleon of crime” who's never been caught for his crimes, is told by a doctor that he has less than a month to live. Over the next few days, the Hand's hired gunmen break five master criminals out of prison to become the “fingers” of his hand and commit crimes he organizes. As part of the game, he also gathers five heroes (and two of their partners) in a Gotham City auditorium to participate in the greatest criminal chase in history. The seven heroes choose which villains to pursue, then plan to meet again in one week. In Death Valley, California, the Green Arrow and Speedy battle Professor Merlin, who attempts to steal vast quantities of gold from Cactus Mike. At the Panama Canal, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy battle an old foe called the Needle, who steals a ray-gun invented by scientist Claude Brighton and tries to use it to destroy the Panama Canal. On Broadway in New York City, the Crimson Avenger and Wing battle Big Caesar, who causes a blackout in Times Square, enabling his men to rob at will under darkness. In the hidden Wamona Valley in the north, accessible only by plane, the Shining Knight battles the Red Dragon, who kills the chief of a primitive American Indian tribe and is mistaken for the Wendigo, enslaving the natives to mine radium for him. In Hollywood, California, the Vigilante (with the help of Billy Gunn) battles the Dummy, who runs a kidnap ring. The seven heroes meet again and are summoned by the Hand to his stronghold. Meanwhile, the Hand's doctor explains that since a new medical procedure can now cure him, he will not die. The Hand tries to kill the heroes when they arrive but is instead electrocuted. The Shining Knight suggests that the heroes team up as the Seven Soldiers of Victory, or the Law's Legionnaires. Note: The team known as the Law's Legionnaires and the Seven Soldiers of Victory is given a slogan by the Shining Knight: “Woe to all workers of evil!” The Hand survives electrocution and presumably receives treatment for his illness, since he survives for another 31 years until 1972. [“Blueprint for Crime,” Leading Comics #1 (Winter, 1941-1942)]

The Justice Society rescues three American scientists (Prof. Damon Everson, Prof. Malachi Zee, and Prof. James Alvin Swanley) from four enemy agents, learn that the brain trust informally known as the Time Trust is working on a device to protect the United States and its allies against bombing, and appoint themselves the scientists' guardians. When Johnny Thunder learns that one of the savants has already perfected a time-travel ray, the heroes travel to the Earth of 2242, feeling that the bomb defense formula must have been perfected by then, and attempt to bring it back. While they are successful, and the scientists are able to build a working force-field that deflects all bombs striking it, Prof. Zee's jealous assistant Per Degaton sabotages the formula before a second test can be performed. Note: The known membership of the Time Trust is as follows: Prof. Damon Everson, Prof. Malachi Zee (whose assistant was Per Degaton), Dr. James Alvin Swanley, Dr. Wilfred Gwythyr Doome (who later fought the Seven Soldiers of Victory and became the Nebula Man), and Prof. Myron Mazursky (who helped found Project M and created the Creature Commandos), while Prof. Carter Nichols (friend of Batman and Robin) was an associate but not an actual member. [“The Case of the Bomb Defense Formula,” All-Star Comics #10 (April-May, 1942); All-Star Squadron #2]

Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy modify their costumes by removing their capes and by adding gloves. Sandman also begins leaving a calling card with a poem at the scene of a case instead of sprinkling sand on his vanquished foes. Note: This story takes place after All-Star Comics #10, since the Sandman still wears a cape in that story, though he apparently takes it off for most of his adventure in the 25th century. [“The Riddle of the Slave Market,” Adventure Comics #72 (March, 1942)]

October 10: Rod Reilly quits his crime-fighting career as Firebrand when he becomes an ensign in the U.S. Navy. [“Never Step on a Feathered Serpent,” All-Star Squadron #5 (January, 1982)]

October 31: Dr. Robert Crane is shot.

November, 1941

November 1-2: Chuck Grayson places Dr. Robert Crane's brain into a robotic body of Crane's own invention, and he becomes Robotman. Learning that Grayson was arrested under suspicion of murdering Crane, Robotman finds the real killers and brings them to justice. [Star Spangled Comics #7; “To Slay the Body Electric,” All-Star Squadron #17 (January, 1983)]

When Pat Dugan spies five well-known criminals dressed as policemen, it piques the interest of the Star-Spangled Kid, who calls the Seven Soldiers of Victory to investigate. They discover that the Black Star is using those felons to commit crimes across the country. In New Orleans, the Shining Knight battles Falseface during a Halloween carnival. On the Caribbean, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy battle Captain Bigg, who uses the guise of the Santa Claus Pirate. In Pleasure City, Green Arrow and Speedy battle the Hopper. In the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota), the Crimson Avenger and Wing battle the Brain at the annual twin convention. In the Malipais country in the Southwest, the Vigilante and Billy Gunn battle the Rattler. After one week, the team regroups to learn that the real goal of the Black Star (a clerk named Mowse) was to steal five radium-elements hidden in five worthless objects to produce black-light radiation, which turns the villain from a scrawny weakling into a powerful man. The Black Star challenges the Seven Soldiers, who battle several animals made larger through black-light rays. Ironically, Black Star is accidentally exposed to too much black-light radiation, causing him to grow giant and die under his own weight. Note: This story cannot take place during Mardi Gras as it supposedly does in the Shining Knight chapter, since during Mardi Gras 1941 several of the team's members were not yet active, and in Mardi Gras 1942 (February 17, 1942), the Shining Knight was still in England; that chapter thus probably takes place during Halloween, 1941. [“Beware, the Black Star Shines,” Leading Comics #2 (Spring, 1942)]

November 4: Prof. Juniper Grimm completes the Time-Sphere, a time machine allowing him to briefly visit New York City in the 30th century. But Starman's old enemy the Light, hearing about the Time-Sphere's existence, kidnaps Prof. Grimm and seizes the time machine, then uses it to bring back Futurites – giant men in protective suits from the future – to terrorize New York City. Starman is nearly defeated when his gravity rod's stellar energy is depleted, except for a timely eclipse that allows it to quickly recharge, giving Starman the boost he needs to escape and defeat the Light and defeat one of the Futurites. The other Futurites escape back to the future with the Time-Sphere. Note: The present year of 1942 is mentioned, but this is a chronicler's error. [“The Invaders from the Future,” Adventure Comics #71 (February, 1942)]

November 4: When Morton Kirk invents a space-folding machine that can instantly transport objects from one place to another with a purple ray, he realizes how dangerous his invention is when he briefly transports an active volcano and wild animals from a distant jungle into Cliffland. After ceasing his experiments, Kirk is imprisoned by his assistant, Nat Rhodes, who then blackmails the city with the device. The Spectre swats away icebergs before they can damage buildings, then saves Cliffland from being deluged by water from the ocean. Kirk stops Rhodes by transporting them both into a distant sea, where they drown. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #73 (November, 1941)]

November 4-9: Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy face Prof. Hiram Gaunt, the human calculator. Sandy's costume now has a red collar. Around this time, Sandman modifies a convertible to be his personalized automobile, the Sandcar. Note: The Sandcar, which is also referred to as the Sandmobile, is chronologically first seen in All-Star Comics #12 (though its first appearance in print is Adventure Comics #76), but since the Sandman is busy in the U.S. Army and then the Justice Battalion of America before the events of All-Star Comics #12, he must have prepared the Sandcar sometime before December 7th, 1941. [“The Man Who Knew All the Answers,” Adventure Comics #74 (May, 1942)]

November 24: Convicted of his crimes, Mister Who escapes from custody while being transported to prison by using his Solution Z to first become a giant, then the size of a doll, and then invisible. In order to resume his crimes, Mister Who steals a fortune from millionaire P.J. Moggan during a society party attended by Kent Nelson and Inza Cramer. Defeating Doctor Fate in battle, Who returns to his old gang, then begins a scheme in which he impersonates Moggan in the hospital. But when Fate confronts him, Mister Who betrays himself when a nervous reaction causes Solution Z to become bigger. Doctor Fate battles Who until the solution has worn off, then delivers him and his gang to prison. [Doctor Fate, More Fun Comics #79 (May, 1942)]

December, 1941

December 4: Starman visits outer space for the first time when he is placed in a rocket and shot out of Earth's atmosphere by a criminal seeking a family inheritance. [“The Case of the Murders in Outer Space,” Adventure Comics #73 (April, 1942)]

December 4-6: Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy battle a criminal named Fairy Tales Fenton, a former professor of metallurgy who poses as the Norse god Thor. Sandy is hospitalized with injuries sustained during the battle. [“The Villain from Valhalla,” Adventure Comics #75 (June, 1942)]

December 7: Uncle Sam, having recruited the Red Torpedo, Magno, Miss America, Neon the Unknown, and the Invisible Hood, finally travels to Rex Tyler's lab and recruits Hourman, who names their team the Freedom Fighters. Bringing the team back to Earth-X over the Pacific Ocean some miles west of Hawaii, Uncle Sam and his Freedom Fighters successfully battle a squadron of Japanese Zeros. Miss America uses her matter-creating powers to create out of thin air the Red Torpedo's flying submarine, upon which the team is resting when one Zero dive-bombs the team and crashes into the submarine, disintegrating the submarine and apparently killing the Red Torpedo, Magno, Neon the Unknown, and the Invisible Hood, although Miss America survives, as do Uncle Sam and Hourman. The Japanese, meanwhile, call off the Pearl Harbor attack, figuring the chances of a surprise attack are now slim. The U.S. does not enter the war at this time. Note: This occurs sometime after Hourman takes a leave of absence from the Justice Society of America on Earth-2, which occurs on June 28, 1941, as shown in All-Star Squadron Annual #3. Although there is a reference to Uncle Sam visiting Hourman in the summer, he actually visits him on the morning of December 7, a date which is confirmed later in the same issue. [All-Star Squadron #31-32]

December 7: The same vortex that transports Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters to Earth-X also transports Midnight and Doll Man, who independently track Uncle Sam down to Rex Tyler's lab and decide to jump into the vortex when they see the others disappearing into it. The two also end up on Earth-X, only across the world in German-Occupied Paris, France. There, Midnight and Doll Man save the lives of two French Resistance fighters (a blonde named Simone and an unnamed male) and are soon introduced to the head of the local Resistance. They fight with the French Resistance for the next two months. [All-Star Squadron #32]

On Earth-X, Hourman is found unconscious by the Japanese, who keep him a prisoner for the next two months, trying to discover the secret of his tremendous strength. [All-Star Squadron #35]

On Earth-X, Uncle Sam washes up on a beach in Hawaii days later and is found by U.S. soldiers who don't believe his story about preventing an invasion of Pearl Harbor, thinking him crazy. Uncle Sam is incarcerated in a padded cell by the military for the next two months, during which time he realizes that by stopping the attack on Pearl Harbor, America does not join in the war effort, allowing the Axis powers to invade even more of Europe and Asia. Uncle Sam spends much of his time attempting to create a vortex to return to Earth-2. [All-Star Squadron #32]

December 6: Note: This story features a scene with Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern similar to the cover of Comic Cavalcade #1. This story features a scene with Superman, Batman, and Robin similar to the cover of World's Finest Comics #6. [Justice League of America #193]

December 7: All-Star Squadron is founded by FDR on the eve of the raid on Pearl Harbor. [Roy Thomas] [All-Star Squadron #1]

December 8: After stopping a Nazi sneak attack on the East Coast launched from a German aircraft carrier, Green Lantern joins the U.S. Army as Alan Scott, along with Doiby Dickles. [“Total War,” Green Lantern #4 (Summer, 1942)]

December 9: The JSA disbands, and all join the armed forces except for the Spectre, who remains behind to protect the homefront. Johnny Thunder joins the U.S. Navy. [All-Star Comics #11; “Never Step on a Feathered Serpent,” All-Star Squadron #5 (January, 1982)]

December 9-10: The All-Star Squadron battles the Feathered Serpent and his cult in Mexico, who are aligned with the Nazis. [“Never Step on a Feathered Serpent,” All-Star Squadron #5 (January, 1982); “Mayhem in the Mile-High City,” All-Star Squadron #6 (February, 1982)]

Percival Popp, a criminology dabbler who fancies himself the Super-Cop despite not being a police officer, becomes the Spectre's unwanted nuisance of a sidekick when he begins trailing Detective Jim Corrigan. In their first case together, the Spectre and Popp stop criminal scientist Mortimer Crandall, nicknamed the Avenger, who uses a fourth-dimensional transportation machine to kidnap a group of wealthy men in a revenge scheme. The Spectre cures Crandall by exposing him to the Nebula of Truth, which cleanses him of his evil ways, and Crandall destroys his machine. Note: It is later revealed that Percival Popp's true name is J. Percival Poplaski, and that Popp is merely a name he uses professionally. [“Introducing Percival Popp the Super-Cop,” More Fun Comics #74 (December, 1941)]

Baron Blitzkrieg hypnotizes Steel, who is still a prisoner of the Nazis, into becoming an assassin and sends him to Ottawa. [“Should Old Acquaintance Be Destroyed,” All-Star Squadron #9 (May, 1982)]

December 30: The All-Star Squadron stops an attempted assassination on Prime Minister Churchill at the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa by the Black Assassin. Steel, the Indestructible Man (partially amnesiac about the last two years) arrives just in time to muffle an explosion when Black Assassin explodes himself in an attempt to kill everyone in his presence. The All-Star Squadron stops Kung, the Assassin of a Thousand Claws, from killing Churchill while on a train from Ottawa to Washington, D.C. [“Afternoon of the Assassins,” All-Star Squadron #8 (April, 1982)]

Steel is promoted to Commander Steel by President Roosevelt. [“Should Old Acquaintance Be Destroyed,” All-Star Squadron #9 (May, 1982)]

1942

January, 1942

At the stroke of midnight, Commander Steel is given a signal that triggers Baron Blitzkrieg's posthypnotic command to assassinate both Roosevelt and Churchill at the White House. The All-Star Squadron stops him and brings him out of the spell, and Commander Steel joins the All-Star Squadron. The feedback damages Baron Blitzkrieg, who is later brought back to Berlin by his dwarf aide, Zwerg. [“Should Old Acquaintance Be Destroyed,” All-Star Squadron #9 (May, 1982)]

Dr. Wilfred Doome, a self-proclaimed great scientist, uses a time machine to bring five of the greatest conquerors of all time to the present and engages them to seek out the five rarest metals on Earth, all to help him build a machine that will open the gate to the future. The Seven Soldiers of Victory overhear their plans and plan to stop them. At the U.S.-Canada border, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy battle Napoleon, who tries to steal a gold shipment. At the Florida Everglades, Green Arrow and Speedy battle Alexander the Great, who tries to steal robots powered by radium, which were invented by scientist Leo Starr. In Alaska, the Shining Knight battles Genghis Khan, who tries to steal a platinum shipment. In South Dakota, the Vigilante and Billy Gunn battle Attila the Hun, who tries to steal Tantalum. At sea, the Crimson Avenger and Wing battle Nero, who tries to seize a shipment of uranium. Regrouping, the Seven Soldiers converge on Dr. Doome's tower on Long Island, but Doome escapes into the past. Speedy grabs a time-rod, and the team steps into the time machine, only to arrive in the 12th century B.C. during the siege of Troy, where they meet Ulysses. When Doome returns to the present, Speedy uses the time-rod to return the team there also. Then, when Doome escapes into the future, the time machine blows up, but the team survives. [“The Tyrants of Time,” Leading Comics #3 (Summer, 1942); “A Man Called Doome,” All-Star Squadron #29 (January, 1984)]

January 7: The All-Star Squadron holds its first meeting and elects Liberty Belle as chairwoman. [“One Day, During the War,” All-Star Squadron #13 (September, 1982)]

January 8: Commander Steel learns that his former fiancee Gloria Giles is now married to Brad Farley, and that her father died a year earlier. [“One Day, During the War,” All-Star Squadron #13 (September, 1982)]

Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Atom, Wildcat, and the Guardian battle an evil globe being banished to Earth-2's universe by the Guardians of Earth-1's universe eons ago, after the globe being possesses Joe Morgan (alias Nat Milligan), who trained at various times Ted Grant (Wildcat), Al Pratt (the Atom), and Jim Harper (the Guardian). Note: This story features a scene with Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern similar to the cover of Comic Cavalcade #2. [“The Three Faces of Evil,” All-Star Squadron Annual #1 (1982)]

Jim Harper becomes the legal guardian for members of the Newsboy Legion. [Star Spangled Comics #7]

The All-Star Squadron battles Nuclear, the Magnetic Marauder, then encounters the Justice League of America from Earth-1's future. The All-Star Squadron and the JLA are at the White House when Per Degaton from 1947 makes his demands to take over the world simultaneously to the world's most powerful leaders. They then witness a test of a nuclear missile in the Atlantic, stolen from Earth-Prime in 1962, and meet the JSA from 1982. The three teams battle the Crime Syndicate from Earth-3's future. After the three teams defeat Per Degaton, they all lose their memory of these events. [“The Mystery Men of October,” All-Star Squadron #14 (October, 1982); “The Bomb-Blast Heard 'Round the World,” Justice League of America #208 (November, 1982); “Master of Worlds and Time,” All-Star Squadron #15 (November, 1982); “Let Old Acquaintances Be Forgot,” Justice League of America #209 (December, 1982)]

Thomas N. Thomas and Daniel Dunbar become TNT and Dan the Dyna-Mite. [Star Spangled Comics #7] SHOULD BE EARLIER

February, 1942

Superman completes building work on his Secret Citadel in the mountains in upstate New York.

On trial as a public menace, Robotman reveals that he is Robert Crane's brain in a robot body; the court declares him a human being. [“The Trial of Robotman,” Star Spangled Comics #15 (December, 1942); “To Slay the Body Electric,” All-Star Squadron #17 (January, 1983)]

The All-Star Squadron meets Tarantula and battles Fairy Tales Fenton (secretly an agent of the Ultra-Humanite), posing as Thor once more and now wielding the legendary hammer of Thor (last seen in Hawkman's hands in All-Star Comics #3). [“Vengeance from Valhalla,” All-Star Squadron #18 (February, 1983)]

February 1: Plastic Man battles a scientist gang leader called Hairy Arms, who attempts to take over New York City with an army of robots, which is only stopped by Eel O'Brian and a group of patriotic crooks. [“Satan's Son Sells Out to the Japs,” Police Comics #9 (May, 1942)]

February 1: The Spider battles a Japanese spymaster known as the Yellow Scorpion, who leads a group of Japanese saboteurs, but escapes. [Alias the Spider, Crack Comics #23 (May, 1942)]

February 1: The Spectre encounters his old foe Kulak the high priest of Brztal in a distant dimension, and holds him at bay for a full week's time. [“For the Dark Things Cannot Stand the Light,” All-Star Squadron #20 (April, 1983)]

February 8: The Flash travels back in time to ancient Rome, where he is enslaved, then stops an early assassination attempt on Julius Caesar. [“The Tale of the Time Capsule,” All-Flash #4 (Spring, 1942)]

February 8: The All-Star Squadron is summoned to the old World's Fair grounds, where they discover that the entire membership of the Justice Society of America, along with Wonder Woman, are unconscious and have been captured by the Brain Wave. The Brain Wave forces the unconscious JSAers to experience lifelike dreams of going to war against the Imperial Japanese forces and finally against Japan itself, with the final result of them dying in their dreams. The All-Star Squadron joins the JSA's dream in order to save them but are also all killed in dreams. Green Lantern arrives and joins the dream battle, only to wreak vengeance on the Japanese by exploding a bomb that destroys an entire city. The feedback defeats the Brain Wave, who escapes, while the JSA prevent Green Lantern from taking his own life in remorse, and he helps the JSA and the All-Stars escape their dream prison. [“The Justice Society Joins the War on Japan,” All-Star Comics #11 (June-July, 1942); “Death, Considered as a State of Mind,” All-Star Squadron #19 (March, 1983); “For the Dark Things Cannot Stand the Light,” All-Star Squadron #20 (April, 1983)]

February 8-10: The Ultra War:

February 8-9: Superman arrives at the World's Fair grounds with the Powerstone and meets with the All-Star Squadron and the JSA. Hawkman explains that, before the Brain Wave captured them all, the War Department asked him to reform the JSA as the Justice Battalion of America for the duration of the war, with a new headquarters at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. All JSA members are relieved of their duties in the armed services, except Johnny Thunder, who remains in the Navy. After Johnny Thunder asks Wonder Woman to be the team's secretary, she accepts. Liberty Belle suggests making the Perisphere into All-Star Squadron's headquarters. Three JSAers (Doctor Fate, the Atom, and Hawkman) and Firebrand find the ninth-floor hotel headquarters of the JSA on fire and put out the flames, but they are then attacked by Cyclotron (Terry Curtis/Terry Kurtzberger) and green-furred subterranean men called the Sub-Men, who want the hammer of Thor. [“A Tale of Three Citadels,” All-Star Squadron #21 (May, 1983)]

February 9: Superman brings Green Lantern and Liberty Belle to his Secret Citadel, where they are attacked by Deathbolt, Sub-Men, and the Ultra-Humanite in the body of Dolores Winters, who seizes the Powerstone. Cyclotron, having recognized Firebrand as his old flame Danette Reilly, kidnaps her from her home. [“The Powerstone Corrupts Absolutely,” All-Star Squadron #22 (June, 1983)]

February 9: Doctor Fate and the Atom stop Amazing-Man, who tries to steal the Helm of Nabu from the Tower of Fate in Salem, Massachusetts. Kent Nelson dons the Helm of Nabu for the first time in over half a year. [“When Fate Thy Measure Takes,” All-Star Squadron #23 (July, 1983)]

February 10: The members of Infinity Inc. (Fury, Nuklon, Northwind, Jade, Obsidian, and Silver Scarab) appear from the future year of 1983 and are immediately enslaved by the Ultra-Humanite. The JSA meets at the War Department, where they are told of a threat to the United States by the Black Dragon Society. The All-Stars battle Amazing-Man, who joins them against the Ultra-Humanite when he learns that Detroit (where his parents live) is threatened. The All-Stars battle the Infinitors but vanish when they make physical contact, replaced by super-villains from the future. [“The Infinity Syndrome,” All-Star Squadron #25 (September, 1983)]

February 10: Super-villains from Limbo in the future (the Mist, Vulcan, Psycho-Pirate II, the Brain Wave, the Monocle, Rag Doll – all members except Vulcan of the Ultra-Humanite's Secret Society of Super-Villains in the future) appear and battle the All-Stars. Phantom Lady gains the ability to become invisible. Brainwave, Junior, reveals that the Ultra-Humanites of present and future have teamed up across time to make this plan succeed. The members of Infinity Inc., now freed from Ultra's control, free themselves. [“Talons Across Time,” All-Star Squadron #26 (October, 1983)]

February 10-11: The All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc. battle the Ultra-Humanite and his agents when they attempt to destroy the three branches of the U.S. government: the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the President. The All-Stars and the Infinitors also prevent Ultra-Humanite from stealing Robotman's body to house his brain. The Atom is exposed to a high amount of radiation when battling Cyclotron, which years later grants him amazing strength. Cyclotron sacrifices his life in a doomed attempt to kill the Ultra-Humanite by exploding his body, but the Ultra-Humanite manages to teleport himself away in time. Infinity Inc. is sent back to the future, and the super-villains from the future are sent back to their prison in Limbo. The Atom (Al Pratt) and Firebrand (Danette Reilly) rescue Terri-Lynn Kurtzberger, Terry Curtis' orphaned infant daughter. [“The Ultra War,” All-Star Squadron Annual #2 (1983)]

February 11-12: The Justice Battalion of America, witnessing the Atom collapse in a hospital from radiation poisoning via the Magic Sphere, leave Washington, D.C., to join him. At the hospital, they use the Magic Sphere to witness how Doctor Fate sought out the Spectre, only to find him under the control of Kulak, high priest of Brztal, who possesses the Ring of Life that the Spectre once used to overcome him. Kulak breaks through into Earth's dimension, appearing simultaneously everywhere on Earth. Sargon the Sorcerer partially restores the hospitalized Atom's strength, then joins the battle against Kulak, preventing Kulak from entering Earth's dimension by placing Sargon's Ruby of Life in contact with the Ring of Life worn by Kulak. The Spectre, under Kulak's control, appears on Earth, and all of humanity comes under Kulak's spell of hatred, turning everyone against everyone else. While the Justice Battalion battles the possessed Spectre, Sargon rescues Doctor Fate, who appears in Kulak's realm. Kulak seizes the Helm of Nabu and dons it, only to send him hurtling powerless through the dimensions (along with the Helm of Nabu), breaking his spell over the world. [“A Spectre is Haunting the Multiverse,” All-Star Squadron #27 (November, 1983); “By Hatred Possessed,” All-Star Squadron #28 (December, 1983)]

February 16: The Black Dragon Society, a secret organization of Japanese spies in America, strikes across the country, abducting eight inventors to seize their war inventions for Japan. The Justice Battalion of America, now operating out of a new headquarters at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is assigned to recover the inventors and keep their work out of Japanese hands. Hawkman saves New York City from being bombed by the Black Dragons. [“The Justice Society of America Pursues Victory for America and Democracy,” All-Star Comics #12 (August-September, 1942); “Day of the Black Dragon,” All-Star Squadron #30 (February, 1984)]

February 17-18: Several All-Star Squadron members attend a Press Convention, including Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Superman, the Ray, and the Sword. A new group of villains appears, calling themselves the Brotherhood of the Electron: Sieur Satan, Lightning Master, Doctor Doog, and Doctor Light. After they attack the convention and kidnap Superman, a group of All-Stars and Lois Lane defeats the Brotherhood and frees Superman. [“All-Star Squadron: Times Past, 1942: Overlord of the Underworld”]

February 19: Roosevelt signs an executive order calling for the creation of internment camps for Japanese-born and Japanese-descended U.S. citizens.

February 22: On Earth-X, Uncle Sam, still locked away in a padded cell, has another vision of an attack on U.S. soil, this time on the coast of California. He now finally succeeds in creating a vortex that transports him back to Earth-2. Unbeknownst to him, one of his preliminary attempts allows Baron Blitzkrieg to transport himself from Earth-2 to the Berlin, Germany, of Earth-X, where his sight is restored. Using his powers, he communicates with his aide Zwerg to orchestrate a wave of Nazi sabotage all along the East Coast, keeping the All-Stars distracted while the Japanese prepare to bomb the California coast. Then Blitzkrieg travels to the Pacific, where the Japanese hand over the captured Hourman to him. [All-Star Squadron #32, 35]

February 22-24: Earth-X:

February 22-23: The All-Star Squadron holds its first general meeting. The Seven Soldiers of Victory (minus the Shining Knight) meets the Justice Battalion of America. Phantom Lady shows off her new green goggles that disguise her face more effectively. Liberty Belle shows off her updated costume (a cape and new gloves, boots, and mask). The Whip has abandoned his fake accent. Uncle Sam, finally able to return to Earth-2 from Earth-X, addresses the team and pleads for their help to return to prevent the invasion of the U.S. mainland. The All-Stars are divided on whether they should journey to that parallel Earth to fight the more powerful Nazi threat there. Midnight shows up with an injured Doll Man. [“Uncle Sam Wants You,” All-Star Squadron #31 (March, 1984)]

February 23: Midnight and Doll Man arrive at All-Star Squadron Headquarters for the same reason as Uncle Sam, to warn of an attack on Santa Barbara, California, an attack that will occur on both Earth-X and Earth-2. The All-Star Squadron splits into two teams, one to fight off the invasion on Earth-2, and the other to fight it on Earth-X. [“Crisis on Earth-X: The Prequel,” All-Star Squadron #32 (April, 1984)]

February 23: Using the power of the Spectre, Uncle Sam leads an All-Star Squadron task force (Doll Man, Black Condor, Phantom Lady, the Human Bomb, the Ray, and the Red Bee) back to Earth-X. Arriving at Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara, California, as the Japanese invasion begins, the team assists in the defense of California. On Earth-2, arriving at Santa Barbara, Johnny Quick and Firebrand meet Neptune Perkins, while Starman and Liberty Belle battle Tsunami (Miya Shimada), who has kidnapped Capt. Rick Cannon. After Tsunami accidentally kills her own father, she flees. Meanwhile, the Spectre, forbidden to enter Earth-X, inadvertently causes the two parallel universes to enter the same vibrational plane and struggles to keep them from destroying each other. On Earth-X, attacking a Japanese Destroyer, the team finds Baron Blitzkrieg, who has Hourman chained to the front of a cannon, having discovered the Japanese had him. [“The Battle of Santa Barbara, Times Two,” All-Star Squadron #33 (May, 1984)]

February 23: Johnny Quick, Firebrand, and Neptune Perkins investigate a Japanese submarine off the California coast, and Johnny and Neptune are captured. On Earth-X, the team there battles Baron Blitzkrieg, who singlehandedly defeats and captures them. Tsunami returns to the Japanese submarine where she had disembarked earlier, and Starman, Liberty Belle, and Firebrand prevent the Japanese from shelling the oil refineries on the coast, then accidentally destroy the Japanese submarine during a rescue attempt. Tsunami attacks the surviving All-Stars. [“The Wrath of Tsunami,” All-Star Squadron #34 (June, 1984)]

February 23-24: The All-Stars and Neptune Perkins battle Tsunami. Meanwhile, the Spectre is struggling to keep Earth-2 and Earth-X from colliding, causing an atmospheric effect like the Aurora Borealis to appear in the sky. On Earth-X, all of the All-Stars there except the Red Bee, thought dead in the battle, awaken in the ruins of a fortress on the Channel Islands off the California coast, where Baron Blitzkrieg has brought them to die while the Japanese shell the coastline. The Red Bee, having survived and swam all the way there, attacks Baron Blitzkrieg, acting as a diversion just long enough for Hourman to regain his powers through Phantom Lady's black-light ray and break loose, but not before Baron Blitzkrieg breaks the Red Bee's back, killing him. Hourman and Uncle Sam battle Baron Blitzkrieg, who manages to create a vortex himself to escape with three Nazi lackeys back to Earth-2. The Spectre, communicating with the team, says that to maintain the cosmic balance three heroes must remain on Earth-X to compensate for the three Earth-X Nazis. Uncle Sam, the Black Condor, and the Ray stay on Earth-X as the Freedom Fighters, while Hourman, Phantom Lady, Doll Man, and the Human Bomb return to Earth-2. There, Tsunami escapes from Neptune Perkins, while Baron Blitzkrieg finds himself blind once more upon his return, but he also escapes from the All-Stars. Liberty Belle chooses Johnny Quick over Rick Cannon. The Spectre returns to Earth-2 and informs the team of the Red Bee's death. [“That Earths May Live,” All-Star Squadron #35 (July, 1984)]

A Nazi scientist named Hans Gootsden, having invented a spatial-displacement ray, trains it on Captain Marvel in the parallel universe of Earth-S (having observed him through a viewer for months). On Earth-S, Captain Marvel is struck by some type of energy that causes him to disappear. The wizard Shazam tells Captain Marvel Junior and Mary Marvel he is on another Earth, and the two make their way to Earth-2, only to discover that Captain Marvel has come under Hitler's power. On Earth-2 in Berlin, Captain Marvel and Billy Batson are split into two separate beings. Keeping Billy tied up and gagged, Hitler uses Captain Marvel as a new weapon against the British. Note: Although it is late February, 1942, on Earth-2, it is early July, 1942, on Earth-S, since time moves differently in some parallel universes. [“Lightning in Berlin,” All-Star Squadron #37 (September, 1984); “Thunder Over London,” All-Star Squadron #36 (August, 1984)]

February 24: The All-Star Squadron discovers that Adolf Hitler has a so-called super-Nazi (Captain Marvel) under his control, who aids the Luftwaffe in a raid on Britain; the Shining Knight is injured in battle with Captain Marvel. Superman realizes that this super-Nazi looks identical to Captain Marvel from the comics. In Nazi Germany, Hitler, using the Spear of Destiny, is keeping Billy Batson (mystically separated from Captain Marvel) a prisoner. Superman travels to Britain to visit the Shining Knight in the hospital, and he ends up battling Captain Marvel in the skies over London, and Captain Marvel knocks out Superman. The All-Star Squadron battles Captain Marvel, who tries to lure the All-Stars into Nazi-conquered territory, thus placing them under the spell of the Spear of Destiny. Freddy Freeman and Mary Bromfield, having followed the All-Stars from Washington, D.C., turn into Captain Marvel Junior and Mary Marvel. [“Thunder Over London,” All-Star Squadron #36 (August, 1984)]

February 24-25: Captain Marvel Junior and Mary Marvel explain the circumstances that led them to Earth-2. A group of non-magical All-Stars (Batman, Hawkman, Plastic Man, and the Flash) travel to Berlin with Freddy Freeman and Mary Bromfield. There, in Hitler's Reichschancellery, they find Billy Batson gagged and locked away, but they are quickly confronted by Captain Marvel and Adolf Hitler himself. Gootsden uses his spatial-displacement ray to split Captain Marvel Junior and Mary Marvel from Freddy Freeman and Mary Bromfield. Hitler uses Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Junior, and Mary Marvel to deliver a huge bomb toward England. The All-Stars battle the Marvel Family and save Parliament from being blown up. Meanwhile, the All-Stars in Germany escape with Billy, Freddy, and Mary and are shot down in the English Channel, then almost captured by the Germans, until the All-Stars in England and the Marvel Family (now freed, once their alter egos are out from under the Spear of Destiny's influence) rescue them. When all six Earth-S natives speak the magic words Shazam and Captain Marvel, they are instantly transported back to Earth-S, where they are rejoined. [“Lightning in Berlin,” All-Star Squadron #37 (September, 1984)]

February 26: Hourman celebrates his “birthday” (actually the date of his debut, more than two years ago) with the Minute-Men of America, now rather than on December 31st, since Hourman had been missing at that time. Hourman outwits Doctor Destiny. Jimmy Martin becomes Hourman's sidekick, dressing up in a smaller Hourman costume, and saves Hourman's life. Note: Rex Tyler's real birthday is on November 5th, according to the 1976 Super DC Calendar, although the Minute-Men would not know this. This story marks the first Hourman story featuring the Miraclo Ray, which is based on black light. [Hourman, Adventure Comics #71 (February, 1942)]

February 27: Commander Steel discovers that Capt. Brad Farley has been captured by the Nazis, and he goes to see his ex-fiancee Gloria Giles Farley, revealing his identity as Hank Heywood to her. She reveals she is pregnant, and Steel vows to go to Germany and rescue Farley. Liberty Belle and Johnny Quick, having dated over the last two and a half months, have become lovers since they fought Tsunami in California. Hourman explains that he was able to keep his old job at Bannerman Chemical by giving his boss a couple of new chemical discoveries he'd earlier created, and that he had just finished setting up his new black-light-based Miraclo Ray to replace the pills. Watching recent newsreels, the All-Star Squadron sees a newsreel of race-riots in Detroit, in which Will Everett (Amazing-Man) is burnt on a cross by the racist organization called the Phantom Empire until he uses his powers to escape. Commander Steel tells the All-Stars of his decision to rescue Farley in Nazi Germany. The All-Star Special, a Curtis XP-55 Ascender modified by the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy that acts as the team's transport ship, is first used. [“Detroit is Dynamite,” All-Star Squadron #38 (October, 1984)]

February 28: The All-Star Squadron arrives in Detroit, where they witness the Phantom Empire and a mystery man called the Real American at a rally. They also meet Will Everett's mother Lula May Everett and his fiancee, Rachel Lindsay. Jake Everett, Will's father, is injured by racist white protesters while heading to move into his house. Amazing-Man and the All-Stars join the fight to separate the two groups. Amazing-Man fights the Real American and is then knocked out and arrested by the police. [“Nobody Gets Out of Paradise Valley Alive,” All-Star Squadron #39 (November, 1984)]

February 28: Green Lantern and Hawkman arrive in Detroit and encounter the Real American, whose voice is very persuasive, then join the other All-Stars. Together, they arrive at the jail, where the Real American is stirring up the white rioters by lying about Amazing-Man having killed a white man. Robotman, the only All-Star not under the sway of the Real American's voice, creates noise that disrupts his control over the All-Stars and the crowd. Amazing-Man defeats the Real American, who explodes and is revealed to be a robot with a sonic mind-influencing device (secretly supplied to the Phantom Empire by the Monitor). The Phantom Empire falls, its leader defeated. Amazing-Man officially joins the All-Star Squadron. [“The Rise and Fall of the Phantom Empire,” All-Star Squadron #40 (December, 1984)]

March, 1942

Boy Commandos have first public case. [Detective Comics #64]

Sandman and Sandy, investigating the Magic Forest that has grown in a remote area outside New York City, battle the Nightshade, a green-skinned villain with the ability to grow and control strange plant-life. Although the Nightshade appears to die when his Magic Forest is burned to the ground, he actually survives. [“The Adventure of the Magic Forest,” World's Finest Comics #6 (Summer, 1942)]

March 3: Starman tries to stop a Japanese bombing mission led by Prince Daka, a Japanese scientist who uses an invisibility ray. Note: Prince Daka is based on Doctor Daka from the 1943 Batman serial. [“Oh, Say, Can't You See?” All-Star Squadron #42 (February, 1985)]

March 4: Starman crashes unconscious at the Perisphere and awakes with a dire warning. Note: Jonathan J. Law (Tarantula) is 23 at the time of this story, so he was born in 1918 (if he turns 24 later this year) or 1919 (if he already had his birthday this year). [“Catch a Falling Starman,” All-Star Squadron #41 (January, 1985)]

March 4: Prince Daka and his super-agents, Kung, Sumo the Samurai, and Tsunami, secretly arrive in New York City on a mission to steal the advanced weapons used by All-Star Squadron members, and they attack and defeat the All-Stars at the Perisphere. Daka gains the gravity rod. Note: The All-Star Squadron (Starman, Liberty Belle, Doctor Fate, Robotman, Firebrand, Wonder Woman, and Hawkman) and the Perisphere is shown on the cover of an issue of Time magazine. [“Oh, Say, Can't You See?” All-Star Squadron #42 (February, 1985)]

March 4: The Guardian arrives at the Perisphere and prevents the ordered execution of the All-Stars, allowing them to fight back and regain the gravity rod as well as capture Tsunami, but Daka and his agents leave with a captive Liberty Belle. The remaining All-Stars, disheartened over Belle's predicament, argue over the gravity rod but finally decide to trade it and Tsunami for Liberty Belle's freedom. During the prisoner exchange, Tsunami (who had begun to realize the All-Stars had honor) saves Liberty Belle's life from a bomb planted by Daka earlier. After another battle, Samurai prevents Daka from killing the All-Stars, since Daka had given his word that there would be no treachery. With the gravity rod back with the All-Stars, Daka and his agents escape, while Tsunami goes her own way. [“Ultimate Victory,” All-Star Squadron #43 (March, 1985)]

March 6: Rex Tyler (Hourman) and Danette Reilly (Firebrand) go on a double-date with Jonathan Law (Tarantula) and Sandra Knight (Phantom Lady), to a costume ball with Rex as Tarantula, Danette as Phantom Lady, Jonathan as Hourman, and Sandra as Firebrand. The four mystery men battle German agents called Night and Fog (Nacht and Nebel), who try to blackmail Danette's father, industrialist “Emerald” Ed Reilly in his office, who effectively collaborated with the Nazis before Pearl Harbor. The All-Stars walk in just as they've thrown Ed Reilly out the window, and Firebrand fails to save him from being killed. Hourman is forced to take a Miraclo pill to save Phantom Lady's life. Note: One of Jonathan Law's mystery novels is entitled The Dozen Masterminds. [“Night and Fog,” All-Star Squadron #44 (April, 1985)]

March 7: Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle travel to Philadelphia, where Belle reveals that she is a descendant of Miss Liberty, who fought alongside Tomahawk during the American Revolutionary War, and Belle has had dreams in which she experiences Miss Liberty being crushed to death by the Liberty Bell, which is how she died nearly 200 years ago. Belle introduces Johnny to Tom Revere, elderly keeper of the Liberty Bell and the closest thing she has to family. Then Baron Blitzkrieg and his super-speedster agent Zyklon arrive (having followed the two All-Stars) to steal the Liberty Bell, killing Tom. In the ensuing battle, Blitzkrieg's dwarf assistant Zwerg is injured. Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Flash arrive to save Liberty Belle, but upon learning that Tom died, Belle quits as a mystery woman. Meanwhile, Baron Blitzkrieg plans to use the Liberty Bell in a bizarre procedure to restore his sight. Note: This story features a scene with Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern similar to the cover of Comic Cavalcade #3. [“Give Me Liberty, Give Me Death,” All-Star Squadron #45 (May, 1985)]

March 8: The All-Star Squadron meets to decide how to find Baron Blitzkrieg and the Liberty Bell. Johnny Quick heads to the hospital where Zwerg is kept, only to find Libby Lawrence (Liberty Belle) using force to extract information from him. They learn of Blitzkrieg's plan to restore his sight using lightning and the same Liberty Bell vibrations that empower Libby. Liberty Belle (back in costume) and Hawkgirl ambush Zyklon and Baron Blitzkrieg to stop the procedure but fail. A lightning bolt passing through the Liberty Bell both restores Blitzkrieg's vision while also giving Liberty Belle vibratory and sonic powers that allow her to save herself from being crushed by the bell like her ancestress. Zyklon and Baron Blitzkrieg escape. Note: Miss Liberty is said to have died 160 years ago, which would be 1782. [“Philadelphia, It Tolls for Thee,” All-Star Squadron #46 (June, 1985)]

March 10: On their way to the monthly meeting of the Justice Battalion, Doctor Fate and Starman stop by the Perisphere. Fate tells Jonathan Law his secret origin. Winston Churchill requests the help of Doctor Fate, and Starman leaves to attend the JSA meeting alone. Note: Although this is not mentioned in the story, it's likely that the JSA merely postpones their regular meeting until all the members can make it, which ends up being April 1st. [“The Secret Origin of Doctor Fate,” All-Star Squadron #47 (July, 1985)]

March 11-12: The Shining Knight, sent to investigate an area of England that was once the site of Camelot but is now closed off from the rest of the country, encounters a figure appearing to be King Arthur and is knocked out. A day later, Doctor Fate and a few All-Star Squadron members arrive in England, where they and the Blackhawks fight the Luftwaffe, then meet Winston Churchill. On the former site of Camelot, the All-Stars discover a castle where there had been nothing but ruins, and they are attacked by a robot appearing as Merlin. Doctor Fate discovers that King Arthur is really Wotan, his arch-nemesis, who sends the entranced Shining Knight to slay him. Note: The text says it is late March, but this is probably erroneous. [“Camelot 1942,” All-Star Squadron #48 (August, 1985)]

March 12: After a swift battle, Doctor Fate and the All-Stars are captured by Wotan, who has allied himself with Adolf Hitler, and who destroys Blackhawk's plane, apparently killing both Blackhawk and his passenger, Hourman. Another prisoner is discovered to be Doctor Occult, who was recently captured by Wotan. The British Army moves in, only to be massacred by Wotan's knight-robots. Hourman and Blackhawk, who had survived the explosion of Blackhawk's plane, battle the knight-robots. The Shining Knight comes out of Wotan's spell and battles Wotan. Hourman is forced to take a second Miraclo pill to survive, but this causes him to have a heart attack. Doctor Fate takes him to a hospital. [“Death-Sword at Sunrise,” All-Star Squadron #49 (September, 1985)]

March 30-31: Starman discovers that a doctor named Ivan Caroff has developed an animalizing lamp that can imbue animalistic characteristics and an animal-like appearance to humans, and his panther-man Klaw is behind a recent theft and murder. But after Caroff captures Starman, the hero is briefly given a lion's head and characteristics, which Starman manages to cure through the use of his gravity rod. Then Caroff is accidentally exposed to his own ray, which at first imbues him with a pig's characteristics before finally dissolving his body entirely through overexposure. Starman then melts the animalizing lamp in order to keep it out of the wrong hands. [“The Case of the Monstrous Animal-Men,” Adventure Comics #74 (May, 1942)]

March 30-31: When Percival Popp attempts to play matchmaker with Jim Corrigan and Clarice Winston, he inadvertently uncovers a plot by an artist named Armand to steal Clarice's soul through black magic by painting it on canvas with the aid of a metal figure. After Armand throws the small figure off the docks, causing Clarice to fall into a coma, Popp attempts to save her by retrieving it. Realizing that Popp may discover his corpse, still buried in a barrel of cement, the Spectre appeals to the Voice to restore his body to life. Now fully alive once more thanks to the Ray of Life, Jim Corrigan swims to the surface, where he and Popp confront Armand, returned to retrieve the metal figure himself. After Armand shoots him, Corrigan realizes that although he is once more alive he still retains the supernatural powers of the Spectre, which he uses to cause Armand to vanish. Given a new lease on life, Corrigan resumes his relationship with Clarice. Note: This is the first story that suggests Jim Corrigan and the Spectre are separate individuals. This story must take place shortly before All-Star Comics #13, since in that issue the Spectre is taken by surprise that he needs to breathe oxygen as a living human being once more, as if this has only happened recently. [The Spectre, More Fun Comics #75 (January, 1942)]

March 31: The Spider has his final encounter with the Yellow Scorpion, who escapes after attempting to destroy a U.S. battleship docked in the harbor. [Alias the Spider, Crack Comics #24 (July, 1942)]

March 30-April 1: Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy begin driving the new, streamlined Sandcar. Sandman's costume now has a purple band stretching horizontally from shoulder to shoulder to meet his cowl. [“Mr. Noah Raids the Town,” Adventure Comics #76 (July, 1942)]

April, 1942

April 1: To remove the Justice Battalion of America as obstacles, Adolf Hitler has his scientist aide Hans Gootsden rocket them individually to the other eight planets of the solar system. But the arrival of Harbinger from 1985 causes those rockets to go into an alternate dimension's solar system where the laws of physics are drastically different. On those planets over the next twelve days, the Justice Battalion members each help the natives deal with a menace to their world. Note: Although the story in All-Star Comics #13 shows the JSA in their new Washington headquarters in the Smithsonian, the story in All-Star Squadron #50 shows them back in their original meeting room in New York City, which has been repaired after being nearly destroyed by fire two months earlier. [“Shanghaied into Space,” All-Star Comics #13 (October-November, 1942); “Crisis Point,” All-Star Squadron #50 (October, 1985)]

April 1: Johnny Chambers and Libby Lawrence are married in Boston, with Shiera Sanders and Tubby Watts acting as maid of honor and best man, respectively. Harbinger recruits Firebrand II to help the Monitor in 1985, but her arrival and departure causes several ripple effects. A backlash of Harbinger's energies cause Commander Steel, currently on a mission to free Brad Farley from captivity in Nazi Germany, to be thrust into Earth-1. Green Lantern, Johnny Quick, and Liberty Belle, following Harbinger and Firebrand through a portal, are instead thrust into Earth-S, while Mister Mind is brought to Earth-2 from another dimension (after spending years listening to Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen on the radio, as well as exploits of the JSA). Due to the havoc-wreaking passage of Harbinger from Earth-1 in the year 1985 to Earth-2 in 1942 (bringing bits of the Crisis era with her), Uncle Sam believes the barrier between the worlds might close permanently. He and Black Condor and the Ray recruit several mystery men from Earth-2 to fight the Axis on Earth-X, including the Blackhawks, the Spider, Manhunter and his dog Thor, the Human Bomb, Midnight, the Jester, and Doll Man. Their last recruits are Plastic Man and Phantom Lady. Note: Some members of this larger Freedom Fighters have already been recruited to go to Earth-X by this time, while the original Firebrand will travel to Earth-X later. The Blackhawks return to Earth-2 after a few months, since there is already a Blackhawks team native to Earth-X, and both the Spider and the Jester return to Earth-2 in 1943. Quicksilver, a native superhero of Earth-X, visits Earth-2 just prior to this story and meets Plastic Man; both Quicksilver and Plastic Man inadvertently father children without knowing about it before heading to Earth-X permanently. [“Crisis Point,” All-Star Squadron #50 (October, 1985)]

April 1: Mister Mind travels from another dimension. He recruits Oom, Nyola, Nightshade (a.k.a. Ramulus), and Mister Who to form the Monster Society of Evil, which battles Doctor Fate, Hawkgirl, Hourman, and Sandy. [“Monster Society of Evil,” All-Star Squadron #51 (November, 1985)]

April 1-2: On Earth-S, Green Lantern, Johnny Quick, and Liberty Belle help Captain Marvel battle shadow creatures. Green Lantern recharges his ring with a fragment of the Starheart, which landed in China on Earth-S as it did on Earth-2. After Captain Marvel summons th spirit of Shazam, the old wizard leads the trio of heroes from Earth-2 to the Rock of Eternity, where they head home after Green Lantern takes a small piece of the Rock of Eternity with him. [“From Fear to Eternity,” All-Star Squadron #52 (December, 1985)]

April 3: Superman battles the Monster Society of Evil, who free the Dummy, then meets the All-Star Squadron at the Perisphere. The Dummy leads a revolt against Mister Mind by freeing Oom, who takes over and renames the Monster Society the Society of Oom. Mister Mind, attempting to return to his own dimension, instead goes to Earth-S just as Green Lantern, Johnny Quick, and Liberty Belle are leaving the Earth-S universe. Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle are separated from G.L. and reappear on the Monitor's satellite in 1985, where they meet Tarantula, Amazing-Man, and Deathbolt from their time. After helping to stop the rampage of the Red Tornado, Johnny Quick is sent on a mission with Green Lantern and Power Girl of 1985, along with Per Degaton from 1947, Deathbolt from 1942, and Star Sapphire from Earth-1. [“Worlds in Turmoil,” All-Star Squadron #53 (January, 1986)]

April 4: The Society of Oom (the Monster Society of Evil, now led by Oom) attacks the Perisphere, and the All-Star Squadron defeats the villains, while Green Lantern destroys Oom. Meanwhile, in 1985, Firebrand II leads a team of historical heroes (the Black Pirate and Justin, the Roving Ranger, Miss Liberty, Viking Prince, Don Caballero, Trigger Twins, the Silent Knight, and Valda the Iron Maiden) on a mission to protect Cape Canaveral. Note: The Seven Soldiers of Victory have established their meeting place in Philadelphia, according to this story, although it may not be a permanent meeting place. [“The Crisis Comes to 1942 (and Vice Versa),” All-Star Squadron #54 (February, 1986)]

April 4: In 1985, Firebrand leads history's heroes to protect Cape Canaveral from attack by a band of Indians, including Super-Chief, Strong Bow, and Arak Son of Thunder. The two groups battle, then join together to fight the Ultra-Humanite's troops, who have captured Cape Canaveral. Cyclotron (Dr. Terry Kurtzberger/Terry Curtis) from February, 1942, having been brought to 1985 by Brainiac for the Villain War, appears at Cape Canaveral to fight the Ultra-Humanite and save his daughter, Terri Rothstein (nee Kurtzberger). [“Crisis at Canaveral,” All-Star Squadron #55 (March, 1986)]

April 4-5: The missing All-Stars return from 1985, just in time for Doctor Fate and Doctor Occult to learn the JSAers are on other planets in the solar system of a parallel universe. [“Kaleidoscope,” All-Star Squadron #57 (May, 1986)]

April 6: Futura, the female robot created by the mad scientist Rotwang in the 23rd century, arrives after a time travel trip to 1942. As the All-Star Squadron completes repairs on the Perisphere, Futura arrives there and battles the All-Stars until Robotman defends her, bringing her back to his laboratory for repairs. [“I Sing the Body Electric,” All-Star Squadron #58 (June, 1986)] The All-Star Squadron's meeting takes place on Sunday, April 12. It is not yet Friday and is probably just after the Perisphere was wrecked.

April 4-11: Five criminals, kidnapped by a robot, have their senses heightened by a certain extract created by a Dr. Brett, in order to be used by a paralyzed man known as the Sixth Sense, who plans to use them to steal five jewels. The Shining Knight summons the Seven Soldiers of Victory to deal with the minions of the Sixth Sense, who increases one sense apiece of his cohorts so they can carry off spectacular robberies for him. The Crimson Avenger and Wing fight Mickey Gordon, whose sense of sound has been heightened, and who reforms for the love of music and a beautiful woman. The Shining Knight battles Fingers O'Fallon, who masquerades as a stage magician called Merlin; Sir Justin receives help from the wealthy Don Coty, who believes himself a modern-day Don Quixote. The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy stop the Human Bloodhound from stealing an emerald from the Kid's father, John Pemberton. The Vigilante and Billy Gunn battle Leo Palate, who has super-taste. Green Arrow and Speedy battle Eagle-Eye Nelson, who has amazing telescopic vision. Returning to the Sense Master, the four criminals tell about their encounters with the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and the Sense Master murders them all. Meanwhile, the Crimson Avenger brings Mickey Gordon to a Seven Soldiers meeting, and he accompanies the team to capture the Sense Master, or the Sixth Sense, who is revealed to be Dr. Brett, and who uses the five jewels to recreate a larger gem called the Lifestone that can bring things to life, both non-living and dead. After a battle, Brett is turned to stone, and the Vigilante drops the Lifestone off a bridge. Several months later, Mickey Gordon has become a rising composer. Note: This story actually takes place over a week like earlier Seven Soldiers stories. Although this story takes place in Philadelphia, according to All-Star Squadron #57, several New York City landmarks are seen at the end of the story in Leading Comics #4, which is why the Sense Master's hideout seen in the last chapter is said to be between Philadelphia and New York City. [“The Sense Master,” Leading Comics #4 (Fall, 1942); “The Sinister Secret of the Sixth Sense,” All-Star Squadron #56 (April, 1986)]

April 12: The entire membership of the All-Star Squadron (except for Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys), including the previously unseen Aquaman, holds its scheduled general meeting. The All-Stars learn that Robotman has repaired the female robot Futura and named her Mekanique, since he didn't know her name. The All-Star Squadron votes to have Robotman return Mekanique to the custody of the team, but he refuses. Four All-Stars arrive at Robotman's laboratory just as Mekanique is brought to life by a bolt of lightning. The All-Stars battle Robotman, causing the laboratory to explode. Mekanique, now revived, defends Robotman.. [“Out of the Ashes, Mekanique,” All-Star Squadron #59 (July, 1986)]

April 13: The Spectre and the Thunderbolt gather the missing JSAers together, and they escape Hyperspace to return to Earth-2. The team, having learned a Nazi scientist named Hans Gootsden was responsible for sending them into space, raid the farmhouse that housed the rockets and that is full of Nazi spies. There they capture Gootsden and taunt Adolf Hitler, listening via two-way radio. Meanwhile, the All-Stars battle Mekanique until she convinces them that she came from the future to prevent a war from erupting. She tells them how a little girl and the passengers of an automobile will get into an accident that will change history, so Green Lantern and Firebrand save both the girl and the passenger, Admiral Higby of the U.S. Navy. The All-Stars and Mekanique join the rest of the All-Star Squadron at the Perisphere, where they learn that the Justice Battalion of America has returned. With the entire membership of the All-Star Squadron present, Johnny Quick snaps a photo of the whole team. Liberty Belle reveals that Uncle Sam sent a message a couple of days ago saying that he and several other mystery men will be remaining for good on Earth-X. Hawkman becomes co-chairman of the All-Star Squadron. Robotman learns Mekanique's secret, that she came back to 1942 to prevent Maria (leader of the slave rebellion) from ever being born, but Mekanique hypnotizes Robotman into forgetting what he learns. The red skies of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, held into place by Mekanique's power to take advantage of their energies, finally disappear. [“The End of the Beginning,” All-Star Squadron #60 (August, 1986)]

Doctor Fate stops the Clock, a round-faced, rotund crime boss who resembles the face of a clock, when he hires men to impersonate lost heirs of family fortunes in order to collect their inheritances. Note: Given their close resemblance, it's likely that this is the same Clock who later battled Robin in Star Spangled Comics #'s 70, 74, 79, and 97. [“Hall of Lost Heirs,” More Fun Comics #81 (July, 1942)]

Paula Brooks has first public case as the Tigress.

Winky Moylan, Blinky Boylan, and Noddy Toylan, three would-be crooks who make a general mess of things but who aren't truly evil, are sort of adopted by the Flash as “the Three Dimwits.” [All-Flash #5]

Hourman [Adventure Comics #76-77]

May 30: The Moroni Gang, using advanced scientific weapons, call themselves the Sun (who uses a mirror-gun to paralyze or destroy) and his satellites, the Moon (who uses an ice-gun), Comet (who uses a flame-gun), Saturn (who uses steel rings), and Mercury (who emits deadly gasses). Pretending to be interplanetary robbers by robbing banks with the use of a working rocket-ship, they encounter Starman and briefly capture him, until he stops their crime wave. Note: This story establishes that Starman's gravity rod is useless in the daytime, as the sun's rays block stellar energy. A full eclipse supposedly takes place during this story, but there were no total eclipses at this time in New York City. [Starman, Adventure Comics #76 (July, 1942)]

June, 1942

Hourman [Adventure Comics #78-79]

June 10-11: Superman and Wonder Woman battle Baron Blitzkrieg and Sumo the Samurai over the fate of a prototype nuclear device. [All-New Collectors' Edition C-54]

Tex Thompson becomes the Americommando, carrying out undercover operations in Europe while disguised as a German officer. (Action Comics #52, Secret Origins #29)

June 28-30: Starman encounters the Mist once again after the criminal breaks out of prison by making his prison cell invisible with the use of smuggled-in inviso-solution. While recapturing the Mist, Starman sustains a broken rib, and Ted Knight is hospitalized for a few days afterward. Doris Lee begins to suspect a connection between Ted Knight and Starman. Note: It's probable that Woodley Allen figures out that Starman is his niece Doris' fiancé Ted Knight due to both men having a broken rib at the same time. Starman is called the Astral Avenger for the first time in this story. [“Finders Keepers,” Adventure Comics #77 (August, 1942)]

Doctor Fate begins using a second headquarters in a towering castle called Castle Destiny, high in the mountains, possibly to continue his medical studies. [“The Two Fates,” More Fun Comics #83 (September, 1942)]

On an alternate Earth, the Justice Society and then the universe is destroyed by a visiting Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite of Earth-1. [World's Funnest]

Green Arrow, Speedy and the Crimson Avenger investigate a series of sensational escapes of several vicious criminals from prison, all arranged by the sinister Skull, who claims to be the wealthiest man in the world and who obtained these criminals to gain for him things that his money could not buy. After individually overcoming the escaped criminals, the Law's Legionnaires confront the Skull for a showdown match with him before he can use the machine his aide had stolen to give him perpetual life. Ironically, the Skull instead ends up prematurely aging himself with the machine and dies. [“The Miracles That Money Couldn't Buy,” Leading Comics #5 (Winter, 1942-1943)]

July 18: To get much-needed foodstuffs to resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied countries, Hawkman devises a capsule containing molecularly-reduced dinners which can be expanded to full size with a special solution, and the Justice Battalion members each choose a country to which to deliver the meals and to aid the local resistance. They are absent from America on their assignment for one month. Hawkman travels to occupied France, where he aids an imprisoned French Resistance leader known as the Sly One. Starman travels to occupied Poland, where he aids Polish Resistance fighters dressed as medieval knights, akin to the Bowman of Mons. The Atom travels to occupied Holland. Doctor Fate travels to Germany and visits concentration camps, feeding the prisoners and teaching them how to commit sabotage without being found out. Doctor Mid-Nite visits occupied Norway. The Spectre travels to occupied Belgium, where he aids a group of patriots by bringing two Nazis to Pluto (presumably the Hyperspace version of Pluto seen in last issue). Johnny Thunder visits occupied Czechoslovakia. The Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy (who has accompanied him for the trip) visit occupied Greece and help prevent the planned invasion of Turkey by passing on information to the Allies. Note: It's possible that Wonder Woman also visited an occupied country such as Russia or China and was thus also occupied for one month, even though it is not mentioned in this story; it has been stated that Wonder Woman took an active role in more JSA cases than is officially acknowledged in the comics. According to Young All-Stars #27, the Spectre and Doctor Fate create temporary ectoplasmic shields to ward off the effects of the Spear of Victory and the Holy Grail, which the Axis uses to turn any magic-based heroes into Nazis; this took a special spell that took a lot of energy out of both of them. [“Food for Starving Patriots,” All-Star Comics #14 (December, 1942-January, 1943)]

August, 1942

August 18: The JSA returns from its one-month mission in Europe and Asia, and Hawkman explains that he's made arrangements for food supplies to be dropped in by air every month at designated places in those countries. [“Food for Starving Patriots,” All-Star Comics #14 (December, 1942-January, 1943)]

After a campaign of terror in which the water in a swimming pool is turned into steam, a fireproof building is set on fire, and everyone within a entire city block is killed through asphyxiation, the super-villain Maligno demands a ransom from the city of Cliffland. The Spectre soon defeats Maligno, who is revealed to be Prof. Hunt and who has power over the elements of nature thanks to a small device affixed to his back. [“Death Rules the Elements,” More Fun Comics #77 (March, 1942)]

August 26: Starman investigates daring robberies supposedly by an invisible crook, which turns out to be a hoax perpetrated by three people who pretend to have been robbed. A boy named Mike Muggins of Brooklyn temporarily becomes Starman's kid sidekick. Note: Starman claims that total invisibility is impossible today, despite the fact that his enemy the Mist has long employed invisibility as his modus operandi. [“The Little Man Who Wasn't There,” Adventure Comics #78 (September, 1942)]

September, 1942

Having passed his medical school exams, Dr. Kent Nelson begins his one-year internship at the Weatherby Free Clinic run by Dr. Roland. As Doctor Fate, he stops wearing his Cloak of Healing in solo cases, donning it only for his adventures with the JSA. [“The Man Who Changed Faces,” More Fun Comics #85 (November, 1942)]

The Sandman is shot in the back while in pursuit of a criminal who stole an ancient Greek hourglass that purportedly contains the lost formula for Greek fire. Sandy brings the Sandman to a hospital, where doctors save his life, but he is hospitalized for days. Note: The Sandman's dream of time traveling back to the Battle of Saratoga in this story may be an actual case of astral projection through time. [“Footprints in the Sands of Time,” Adventure Comics #79 (October, 1942)]

October, 1942

Neptune Perkins and Tsunami join the All-Star Squadron in an untold story.

A gang of criminals (Noggin, Statler, and Four-Eyes), stumbling onto a time machine called the Time-Mobile, use it to travel back in time to the year 1599, where they kidnap William Shakespeare and bring him back to 1942 with them to act as their mastermind, planning crimes for them. Starman rescues the inventor of the Time-Mobile, stops the gang, and rescues Shakespeare himself, whom the inventor brings back to his own time. Note: The unnamed inventor who invents the Time-Mobile may be Prof. Juniper Grimm, who invented the Time-Sphere as shown in Adventure Comics #71, since Starman seems to recognize him, as he calls him “Professor.” Batman is mentioned in this story. [“The Time-Machine Crime,” Adventure Comics #80 (November, 1942)]

November, 1942

December, 1942

Henry King, a mutant with the power to create three-dimensional images of whatever person or persons he thinks of, rules over a network of frightened gangsters as the master criminal called the Brain Wave. The individual Justice Battalion of America members, fighting different gangs, soon discover his hand behind each of them. But when the men go missing, Wonder Woman gathers the women in the JSAers' lives to go fight the Brain Wave, each one dressed up as a JSAer. Note: Wonder Woman already had female-sized versions of the JSA's outfits made up a few weeks ago as a hobby, with something like this in mind. After this story, Doctor Fate and the Spectre remove the knowledge of the JSAers' secret identities from their girlfriends (the ones who didn't already know). [“The Man Who Created Images,” All-Star Comics #15 (February-March, 1943)]

1943

January, 1943

The Seven Soldiers of Victory are offered $1 billion to recover a fortune in gold that was hidden away in the Andes Mountain range by the Incan Indians from murderous Spaniards. In order to gain a billion dollars for the U.S. war effort, the team agrees and makes it a competition, following a map and obscure clues in search of the treasure. But an unknown enemy sets the Law's Legionnaires against each other, pitting Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy against Green Arrow and Speedy, and the Shining Knight against the Vigilante. Finally, the Legionnaires team up, find the treasure, and defeat the crooks. [“The Treasure That Time Forgot,” Leading Comics #6 (Spring, 1943)]

Ted Knight completes a device called the RadCAM for the Manhattan Project. A Nazi agent steals it and uses it to transform another Nazi agent into a super-villain called the Aryan Flame. Starman battles the Aryan Flame with the help of Johnny Quick and Captain Triumph, who successfully contain him, but the villain later apparently dies. Frustrated with the direction of the project, Ted quits the project and gives up all atomic power research. [“Starman: Times Past, 1945: Nuclear Furnace, Chapters 1-3”]

February, 1943

Dr. Kent Nelson and Inza Cramer become engaged at this time. [“The Case of the Healthy Patient,” More Fun Comics #90 (April, 1943)]

The Spectre encounters the costumed super-villain Spectrum, the king of color, who uses a combination of color and sound to manipulate emotions and hypnotize people. Spectrum is revealed to be Hal Herman, a movie studio gag man, formerly of the color department, who tries to kill Corrigan in order to hypnotize Clarice Winston into marrying him. After the Spectre pursues him, Spectrum crashes into a paint shop and drowns in colorful paints. Note: After this story, Jim Corrigan has a change of heart and breaks off his relationship with Clarice Winston a second and final time, possibly reasoning that she'll always be in danger as long as he's around, and she deserves better. Corrigan also moves from Cliffland to Gotham City after this story, as evidenced by the references to Gotham Town in issue #82 and Gotham City in issues #88, #92, and #94 (notwithstanding the single reference to Calver City in issue #84), and the distinct lack of any references to Cliffland. The reference to Times Square in issue #92 and Long Island in issue #93 indicate that the Spectre is actually operating in New York City, which is also nicknamed Gotham. Detective Corrigan is transferred to Gotham's Fifth Precinct. Percival Popp decides to follow Corrigan to Gotham City, still trying to be his partner despite Corrigan's insistence that he's a lone wolf. Unknown to Percival Popp, his short-lived girlfriend Bubbles Twinkletoes (her real name is probably something hard to remember or pronounce, such as Babette Trzebiatowski) becomes pregnant with Popp's child, Nelly Poplaski, who is born in Cliffland in November, 1943, though Popp wouldn't learn of her existence until at least 1945. [“King of Color,” More Fun Comics #80 (June, 1942)]

Trying the age-old tactic of divide and conquer, Adolf Hitler sends several of his handpicked agents into America to incite racial, religious, and class hatred and to weaken the country for his gain. Hawkman stumbles onto the plot and sends the other Justice Battalion of America members to trouble spots. They are assisted by the JSA's fan club, the Junior Justice Society. [“The Justice Society Fights for a United America,” All-Star Comics #16 (April-May, 1943)]

The Sandman and Sandy battle the Carnival Mob, comprising four former members of the Mammoth Carnival: Midget Mannion the mighty mite, Stretcho the rubber man (who can stretch his body in a limited way), Samson the modern Goliath, and Presto, master of magic. [“Crime Carnival,” Adventure Comics #84 (March, 1943)]

February 20: As a public panic begins, Starman – who uses a spare gravity rod, since his original is missing – investigates a case of a green ray killing the astronomers at the Palomine Observatory in California but is struck down by it, giving him amnesia instead of killing him, and he is nursed back to health by an old farmer and his wife who don't recognize him. In reality, it is a hoax perpetrated by a crook named Slim Jordan, who makes the observatory a base for crime, striking down anyone who approaches with the green death-ray. [“The Doom from the Skies,” Adventure Comics #84 (March, 1943)]

March, 1943

After several weeks, Starman regains his memory and stops Slim Jordan, whom he learns stole his original gravity rod from Ted Knight's New York City home and used the gravity rod as a death-ray. [“The Doom from the Skies,” Adventure Comics #84 (March, 1943)]

Mister Who escapes from prison when one of his gang sends him a letter soaked in Solution Z, and he shrinks small enough to be carried away by a trained homing pigeon. When Doctor Fate attempts to recapture him, he's knocked out and then forced to drink a form of Solution Z that causes him to shrink before he is imprisoned in a bird cage. Escaping, Fate battles Who while still the size of a doll, then defeats him when the solution finally wears off. [“The Man Who Belittled Fate,” More Fun Comics #91 (May-June, 1943)]

April, 1943

The Seven Soldiers of Victory are summoned together under the guise of a charity event by an emissary of Wisstark, a hidden city in Antarctica, for help. The team agrees to help and is brought there in a huge, capsule-shaped, flying glass ship, where they meet the Wizard of Wisstark, who it turns out is an American stage magician from New York City who uses his tricks of the trade to create illusions. He enlists the help of the Seven Soldiers to protect Wisstark from a neighboring city called Stanovia, which is led by three wizards, and the team members take on assignments. Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy try to enlist the help of the giants living in the mountains but only manage to capture film footage of them. Green Arrow and Speedy visit Stanovia and discover that the three wizards aren't using real magic at all but science-based illusions. Crimson Avenger and Wing battle invisible invaders from Stanovia who attempt to steal the flying ship, which was originally created by the three wizards. The Vigilante uncovers a Stanovian ploy to impersonate the Wizard of Wisstark. The Shining Knight becomes the general of Wisstark's army and tries to train them for real battle. At dawn the next day, the armies of Wisstark and Stanovia meet on a plain that acts as a battleground. The Stanovian army begins to win when the three wizards use their illusion-casting abilities to confuse and panic the Wisstark army, but the Seven Soldiers fight back with illusions of their own, including film footage of the giants captured by the Star-Spangled Kid, and their side wins. The three wizards, while fleeing, fall to their death in a trap they themselves made, and the war is over. [“Wizard of Wisstark,” Leading Comics #7 (Summer, 1943)]

April 20: Playboy Dennis Towns, having been jinxed on land and in the sea, attempts to fly to the Moon in a rocket-ship. Moments later, the Moon itself appears to speak, proclaiming Towns' death. As Starman investigates, the city is struck by a series of disasters as buildings collapse. Then a gang of crooks calling themselves the Moonmen begin looting. Starman discovers that Dennis Towns is the Moonman, pretending to speak from the Moon to cover a series of robberies. [“The Moonman's Muggs,” Adventure Comics #86 (June-July, 1943)]

May, 1943

May 28: Doctor Fate encounters the Clock once more he discovers that the crime boss is able to easily get in or out of his prison cell through a tunnel, and has resumed his criminal schemes, using his supposed incarceration as an alibi. Fate returns him to prison. [“Fate Turns Back the Clock,” More Fun Comics #92 (July-August, 1943)]

June, 1943

Upset with the fact that the Seven Soldiers of Victory seem to be wise to his vast criminal organization's plans, the Dummy, with the use of a time machine, sends each of the heroes to a different era in the past. Green Arrow and Speedy are hurled back into the days of the Three Musketeers and are arrested along with the three for dueling, and because of the disappearance of the Queen's pearl necklace. The Crimson Avenger and Wing find themselves into ancient China of 225 B.C. and meet up with an inventor, who shows them his creations. In the end, our heroes must battle the Japanese with one of that inventor's creations: gunpowder. The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy find themselves aboard a Viking ship, helping Eric the Red and Leif Ericson battle their enemies, then agree to help them find food for their people, leading to the discovery of Vineland (America). Three of the Dummy's men use the time machine to go back into the time of the ancient Romans, where Vigilante has been sent, to rob Crassus, a millionaire by contemporary standards. The Shining Knight lands in ancient Italy to discover Leonardo Da Vinci attempting to fly with one of his contraptions, and saves him from one of his enemies. Then he discovers that da Vinci has invented a time machine, and the Knight decides to put it to good use. The Shining Knight uses the time machine to bring each of the Soldiers back to the present time in order to round up the Dummy and his men. [Leading Comics #8 (Fall, 1943)]

After Jim Corrigan rejects him one last time, Percival Popp begins an informal partnership with Corrigan's alter ego, the Spectre, since Popp has a knack for accidentally uncovering criminal schemes. Note: Jim Corrigan has relocated to Gotham City (called Gotham Town) by this time. [“The Truth Hurts,” More Fun Comics #82 (August, 1942)]

July, 1943

The powerful Osira, who has slept for 3000 years, is revived after the pyramid she's slept in receives oxygen. Flying off, she places the U.S. Congress under mind-control through the use of a special pyramid, until Wonder Woman frees them by displacing the pyramid. All over the world, world leaders have similarly come under Osira's control, pleading for world peace, while Osira has also defeated the Justice Society of America, placing five (Sandman, Atom, Starman, Mister Terrific, and Johnny Thunder) in her pyramid in Egypt, while others are trapped on the Moon. Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor head to Egypt, where Wonder Woman battles Osira but is defeated and learns of the JSA's fate. Osira takes Steve Trevor as her consort, since Steve is her deceased husband's double. Wonder Woman breaks free, but Osira uses the five JSAers as soldiers against her. Wonder Woman defeats the JSAers with the help of the Thunderbolt, then convinces Osira (with the help of her consort's spirit) that she has merely created a false peace. Osira allows her body to disintegrate so she can rejoin Hefnakhti in the afterlife. Note: The Sandman is shown wearing his original gas-mask costume, while Johnny Thunder is shown wearing his green suit rather than his white sailor's suit that he's worn constantly since joining the U.S. Navy, but this is in keeping with his appearance in All-Star Comics #17, which takes place a month later. Mister Terrific is shown as a JSAer here, two years before he joins the team, though it is possible that he's an honorary member by this time, or that he was with the JSA when they were taken by Osira. [“This War Has Been Cancelled,” Wonder Woman #231 (May, 1977); “A Duel of Gods,” Wonder Woman #232 (June, 1977)]

August, 1943

August 13: The Brain Wave reduces the Justice Society of America to eight inches in height with a shrinking ray and imprisons them in birdcages, then unleashes several branches of his massive gang on criminal errands. After Hawkman summons hawks to rescue them, each JSAer thwarts the members of the gang while still at a small size, until the Thunderbolt gathers them all together and restores them to full size. Together, the JSA returns to the Brain Wave's Sharktooth Bay lighthouse headquarters, but the villain fakes his death by causing the lighthouse to explode. Around this time, the Justice Society drops the name Justice Battalion, and the team stops meeting at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, preferring to meet either at the JSA's original meeting room on the top floor of a New York City hotel, or at the Perisphere outside of New York City. Note: This story takes place partly during Friday the 13th, so it must partly take place on August 13, 1943, the only Friday the 13th of the year. [“The Brain Wave Goes Berserk,” All-Star Comics #17 (June-July, 1943)]

The new Mister X, a master of disguise, takes on each of the Seven Soldiers of Victory one by one in order to win bets placed against five crooks defeated by the Soldiers. Although each of the Seven Soldiers foils his plans, Mister X manages to escape while using an unexpected disguise each time. Finally, the Seven Soldiers of Victory work together and capture not only Mister X (who is revealed to be a very ugly man beneath his disguises) but the five crooks at the remote hotel at which they're hiding out. Note: This Mister X is likely the successor of the earlier Mister X who retired as head of the Syndicate after the JSA foiled his plans in All-Star Comics #5. This story takes place during the summer, according to the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy chapter. [“The Chameleon of Crime,” Leading Comics #9 (Winter, 1943-1944)]

September, 1943

September 14: Frustrated exterminator Elmer Pane devotes years of research to find a way to give humans the proportionate power of insects. Becoming the King Bee, he turns homeless men into termite-men, borer-men, water beetle-men, hornet-men, spider-men, ant-men, grasshopper-men, fly-men, and bee-men and offers his insect-powered crooks' services to the underworld, eventually becoming wealthy enough to build a great laboratory in the Great Forest. The members of the Justice Society each battle the insect-men and learn of the King Bee's location, where they defeat him and retrieve a list of antidotes to cure the insect-men. Note: Although Wonder Woman is not shown in battle, it is almost certain that she also fought a group of insect-men and may have participated in the raid on King Bee's lair. [“Insects Turn to Crime,” All-Star Comics #18 (Fall, 1943)]

November 12: A head injury years ago causes a frustrated would-be composer named Hector Bauer to take out his revenge on seven childhood friends who succeeded in music where he failed, forcing him to become a humble piano maker. Hawkman is captured after preventing the first crime, and while paralyzed he learns of Bauer's plans for his revenge and manages to leave clues for the Justice Society to stop the other revenge crimes. The JSA does so and converges on Bauer's home, where they free Hawkman. Note: Hawkman has taught all the Justice Society members the art of bird language for use in emergencies. [“The Crimes Set to Music,” All-Star Comics #19 (Winter, 1943-1944)]

Blinky Boylan, of the Three Dimwits, hypnotises himself into turning into a superhero called Muscleman. [All-Flash #13]

December 11: Starman discovers a time-lost land in a fog-laden, hidden valley in the Sierra Madrone Mountains where the population lives as if it's still the Middle Ages, after a female scientist named Babs Mercer disappears and is tried as a witch there. Starman rescues Babs from Sir Bors the Black, ruler of the land of Brame, and frightens both Sir Bors and Mantin the court magician so much that they'll always be too afraid of Americans to accuse anyone else of witchcraft or hold them hostage. [“Land Beneath the Fog,” Adventure Comics #90 (February-March, 1944)]

Vandal Savage allies himself with the Axis powers, conspiring to make himself the new chief of war labor in the U.S. in hopes of sabotaging American military production. He is challenged and defeated by Green Lantern, apparently falling to his death. [Green Lantern #10]

1944

January, 1944

January 31: Nabu the Wise appears to Dr. Kent Nelson in a dream, warning him that due to a transgression by Nabu, he must forget his magic for a time, and Doctor Fate will be a mortal man with no powers for 24 hours. Doctor Fate is forced to use only his wits and normal human strength to rescue himself and a group of trapped miners in a cave-in. Note: The transgression that Nabu committed is never revealed, but it may have something to do with his possession of Kent Nelson when he first became Doctor Fate, instead of trusting Kent and Inza Cramer to wield the power of Fate together. [“Forgotten Magic,” More Fun Comics #96 (March-April, 1944)]

February, 1944

Jason L. Rogers, an industrial magnate, appeals for the Justice Society of America's help against a criminal mastermind known as the Monster, who has been ruining his life, and who the JSA has been trailing for months without success. Rogers gives the Justice Society members the Monster's criminal plans, which he found in his own desk. Rogers tells the team how he had a home movie made of himself and his wife fifteen years earlier, in 1929, and how, while viewing it, his wife somehow died of fright. The JSAers each follow up with the Monster's written plans, thwarting the villain's various schemes, though the Monster himself escapes each time. Finally, the JSA together confronts the Monster, who is struck by a lethal dose of radiation from his own ray-gun. The JSA learn that the Monster, who claims to be Rogers' brother, is actually Rogers himself after viewing the home movie that shows Rogers transforming into the Monster while embracing his wife. Doctor Mid-Nite theorizes that Jason Rogers and the Monster were twins, but while the Monster had a mind, he never developed a body, and he could take over Rogers' body at any time, changing Rogers' characteristics and giving him extra strength, while blanking out Rogers' mind. As the Monster supposedly dies, he changes back to Jason Rogers, who now knows the truth and is glad that the Monster will plague the world no more. Note: The Monster does not actually die, since he is later shown in prison, where Per Degaton of 1948 retrieves him to travel back in time to 1941, where they confront the heroes that form the All-Star Squadron. Although Johnny Thunder is seen wearing his white Navy uniform in this story, he is no longer in the Navy by this time. [“The Movie that Changed a Man's Life,” All-Star Comics #20 (Spring, 1944)]

February 9: Starman has his last case in New York City after splitting his time between New York and Opal City for several years. After this story, Ted Knight sells his New York City home and consolidates his business interests in Opal City, his primary home, in preparation to marry Doris Lee in 1945. By the time of this story, Doris has already figured out that Ted Knight is Starman. Note: This is the last original Starman story that specifically takes place in New York City, which is often called by the nickname of “Gotham” (even in the same stories as it's called New York City) but should not be confused with Gotham City. [“The Rising Star of Johnny Teach,” Adventure Comics #91 (April-May, 1944)]

March, 1944

The Seven Soldiers of Victory head to the Pacific Ocean to search for Prof. Moran, a famous ichthyologist whose museum expedition vanished without a trace several weeks earlier. But during a storm, the heroes are scattered amongst several mysterious uncharted islands and are forced to work with different partners than usual. The Crimson Avenger and Speedy are shipwrecked on an island, where they play Robinson Crusoe in an effort to survive until they are waylaid by crooks working for a mysterious king. The Green Arrow and the Vigilante discover an aquarium on another island and find the long-missing criminal Baby-Face Johnson living there, where he has become a king of crooks and is collecting fish, but an earthquake prevents the heroes from capturing him. Stripesy and Wing are rescued by Jonathan and William, the descendants of 17th century explorers who named the islands the Hundred Isles; they tell them how strangers arrived on their island two years earlier, and their leader declared himself the king, forcing the men to pay taxes, but when Stripesy and Wing confront the king's men themselves, the heroes are knocked out and captured. The Shining Knight and the Star-Spangled Kid, searching the islands from the air, find Prof. Moran and his expedition and battle the criminals attempting to steal Moran's captured fish, but the Shining Knight and the Star-Spangled Kid are knocked out, and the Kid is captured, until both manage to escape with Prof. Moran's help. Jonathan and William keep Stripesy and Wing alive long enough for the Shining Knight and the Star-Spangled Kid to free them. Then the Shining Knight finds the rest of the Law's Legionnaires, and together they dethrone Baby-Face Johnson and capture him and his gang of crooks, forcing them to work for the original inhabitants of the Hundred Isles until they can return with a ship to bring them to prison on the U.S. mainland. [“King of the Hundred Isles,” Leading Comics #10 (Spring, 1944)]

April, 1944

April 12: The Brain Wave uses the power of his mind to mentally command Mister Terrific to become Mister Horrific, whom he sends to take down several of the JSA members one by one, capturing them. Only Wonder Woman is able to finally stop Mister Horrific, and she uses her magic lasso to undo the Brain Wave's hypnotic control over him. Since Doctor Fate, the Spectre, and the Sandman are absent for this case, and Starman informs the JSA that he plans to leave the team by the end of the year, Mister Terrific and Wildcat are offered provisional membership and agree to act as reserve members whenever other JSAers cannot make it to a meeting. [“Justice Society of America: Times Past, 1944: The Incredible Mister Horrific”]

May, 1944

Prof. Everson asks the Justice Society of America to help Joe Fitch, a dying assistant of Professor Everson's who sacrificed his life by making himself a human test subject for a disease-curing serum, by going back through time and setting straight the occurrences of evil in his past, allowing him to die with a clean conscience. The Justice Society agrees, having been asked to do so by President Roosevelt. Prof. Everson uses his time-ray to send the JSAers back in time to seminal moments in Joe's life, where they prevent him from committing crimes, while the effects of changing history take place in the present. Hawkman travels to the year 1904 to prevent Joe from helping to rob the bank he works at as a teller, and instead Joe captures the bank robbers alongside Hawkman. The Sandman travels to 1906 in San Francisco, where he stops Joe from murdering Mike McCullum, a bully who is forcing Joe's girlfriend Lily D'arcy to marry him, but when McCullum is shot nevertheless, he discovers another man had shot him amidst the chaos of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and Joe flees, mistakenly thinking he's a murderer. Starman travels to 1914 in Mexico, where he stops Joe from blowing up a saloon on Pancho Villa's orders, but although Starman prevents Joe from doing so, other men blow up the saloon at that same moment, and Joe mistakenly thinks he's responsible for many deaths. Doctor Mid-Nite travels to World War I, where he helps Joe overcome his fear of loud explosions (due to the saloon explosion) enough for Joe to save another man from being crippled by a grenade. Doctor Fate travels to 1924 and prevents Joe from killing a reporter who knows about his supposed crimes, then acts as a witness against a rum-running gang leader who really killed the reporter with poison and set up Joe to shoot him. Johnny Thunder travels to 1932 in the Midwest, where he keeps Joe from rigging an election, allowing an honest administration to be elected in that town. In the present, Joe learns that he committed none of the crimes that he regretted so, and his old love Lily D'arcy arrives at his bedside and marries him before he dies. The Sandman and Doctor Fate resign from JSA membership after this case. [“The Man who Relived His Life,” All-Star Comics #21 (Summer, 1944)]

Doctor Fate has his last solo case in this era, after which he retires from heroics to focus on being a medical doctor. Dr. Kent Nelson and Inza Cramer are married sometime after this story. Note: Despite his retirement, Doctor Fate still makes occasional appearances in costume before he comes out of retirement in the early 1960s. [“The Bashful King of Crime,” More Fun Comics #98 (July-August, 1944)]

The Seven Soldiers of Victory, having collected evidence, finally round up Handsome Harry's gang, though the gang leader himself escapes. Harry's so-called lucky hat, which goes missing, then has a series of new owners over the following days and weeks who become involved in crimes that the individual Law's Legionnaires put a stop to. Finally, Handsome Harry, who has become a hobo while on the run, regains the hat by a quirk of fate and begins a new scheme, a Hobo College used as a front for a crime operation. The Seven Soldiers of Victory, learning of this new criminal organization, pose as hoboes and enroll at Hobo College, where they discover Handsome Harry and finally arrest him, while the hat becomes a bird's nest. [“The Hard-Luck Hat,” Leading Comics #11 (Summer, 1944)]

June, 1944

To convince Dick Amber, a young man opposed to World War II, that Germany is a foe worth fighting, the JSA invoke the spirit of the Conscience of Man, who causes him to assume various identity-forms of Germans throughout the years, in each era with a Justice Society member accompanying him while possessing Conscience's powers. Wildcat and Mister Terrific participate in this case as reserve members, taking the place of the absent Starman and the Spectre. In the year 1410, watched over by Hawkman, Dick Amber is Reinhard the Fair, who is sent to join the Order of Teutonic Knights who rule Prussia, when he realizes the Teutonic Knights are in the wrong in their invasion of Poland, and he helps the Poles defeat the Teutons in the Battle of Grunwald (or Tannenberg). In the 18th century, watched over by Mister Terrific, Dick Amber is Manfred von Klug, cousin of Frederick the Great, and after constant warring on other nations finally resigns as a general from the Prussian army. In 1824, watched over by Doctor Mid-Nite, Dick Amber is Wilhelm von Shurtleff, who fights a bully at the Prussian War Academy. In 1872, watched over by the Atom, Dick Amber is Helmut von Conrad who, discovering that the Franco-Prussian War was fought based on a lie, confronts German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck but is unable to kill him. In 1896, watched over by Wildcat, Dick Amber is Franz Unger, who helps a fugitive named Udolph Thieffel escape into Switzerland. In 1923, watched over by Johnny Thunder, Dick Amber is Karl Wertz, who is pressured into joining the fledgling Nationalist-Socialist Party by his friend, who is ordered by a younger Adolf Hitler to kill him in an effort to keep him from telling the police about the Nazis' plans. In the present, Dick Amber decides to do his part by joining the U.S. Army. Note: The present-day portion of this story takes place in early 1945, but the rest of the story being retold is from several months earlier, since Dick Amber would have had to have several months in order to win the Congressional Medal of Honor as a U.S. Army sergeant. [“This Is Our Enemy,” All-Star Comics #24 (Spring, 1945)]

On Earth-C, Merton McSnurtle of Zooville is selected by gods from another planet for good on Earth; equipped with an automatic conscience that doesn't leave him alone for a second, he becomes The Terrific Whatzit, who is a funny animal version of the Flash. [Martin Naydel] [Funny Stuff #1]

August, 1944

When Doctor Mid-Nite, on his way to a JSA meeting, sees a youth suffering religious persecution, he takes the boy with him, and the heroes invoke the living spirit of the Conscience of Man, who sends the members to different past eras where they assume native identities to battle prejudice of different kinds. Hawkman is sent to the Stone Age, where he is Ga, a mighty hunter, and he meets Tow, the first artist in the world, and saves him from being killed by his superstitious fellow cave-dwellers. Starman is sent to ancient Greece in the year 480 B.C., where he is Theodoratus, a member of the Strategoi, and convinces Leonidas of Sparta to train slaves to become an army to help them battle the invading Persians led by Xerxes during the Battle of Thermopylae. Johnny Thunder is sent to Medieval England, where he is Johnny the shepherd boy who becomes a baron's jester that, through jousting as a knight, proves his worth and convinces the baron to abolish serfdom on his land. The Atom is sent to early 17th-century America in Salem, Massachusettes, where he is Nathaniel Pratt and saves an old woman accused of witchcraft. Doctor Mid-Nite is sent to Paris in 1793 during the French Revolution, where he is Dr. de Nider and saves the Duc de Harigny from being killed by the French mob out for noble blood, beginning the end of the Reign of Terror. The Spectre is sent to 1815, where he stops an inventor named Steve Hare from being killed by a mob fearful that his machines will mean an end to their jobs. Back in the present, the Justice Society members pledge to end prejudice, beginning with a big rally at the boy's school. Note: It's possible that when the JSAers are sent back into time, they inhabit or replace the bodies of their direct ancestors, similar to Quantum Leap. [“The Test of Time,” All-Star Comics #22 (Fall, 1944)]

August 7: The Seven Soldiers of Victory, warned against appearing at the front gate of millionaire Weldon Darrel's estate, are ambushed, then issued a challenge by the millionaire. If the heroes win the challenge by figuring out five clues, Darrel will donate a million dollars to any charity they name. The Vigilante heads to Wyoming to follow a clue to find a treasure there and ends up arresting a gang of men illegally mining Darrel's property. The Crimson Avenger and Wing find hidden jewels in an old printing press sold by a small-town newspaper owned by Darrell, but the Avenger is accused of being a thief. Green Arrow and Speedy run afoul of the law before they successfully pull out a metal box containing a fortune in negotiable bonds from a large meteorite on display at a museum, loaned for an exhibition by Darrel. The Shining Knight, spotting a gang of thieves, is almost framed for their crimes, then he discovers a “treasure” of child's toys and infant's shoes in a nearby metal pyramid. The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy head to a grotto with a miniature town and several working toys inside, built by Darrel as a way to reform crooks, and, after finding a treasure within the model bank, fight off a gang of crooks who want to keep it. Gathering back at Weldon Darrel's estate, the Law's Legionnaires confront the man, who confesses that he's really a crook posing as the real Weldon Darrel. Capturing the crook and his gang, the heroes free the real Darrel, kept in the wine cellar, and the real millionaire chooses to honor the challenge, writing a check for the heroes' charities. [“Million Dollar Challenge,” Leading Comics #12 (Fall, 1944)]

October, 1944

Newspaper publisher Rex Morgan summons the Justice Society to accept the written challenge of the Psycho-Pirate, a mysterious criminal who exploits emotions in his crimes, and who dares the JSA members to stop six emotion-based crimes he has planned. Hawkman foils a crime based on love, in which the Psycho-Pirate had Shiera Sanders kidnapped to act as leverage. Starman foils a crime based on hate. Doctor Mid-Nite frees an entire suburban city cut off from the outside world and gripped with fear of a plague being loosed upon them. Johnny Thunder is manipulated by conceit into getting himself captured, until the Thunderbolt saves the day. The Spectre foils a scheme based on greed. The Atom, tricked into thinking the JSA has been defeated, almost gives in to despair, but when he fights back, he is shot in the shoulder by the Psycho-Pirate. The assembled Justice Society gathers back at the Courier newspaper offices, where the wounded Atom manages to reveal that the Psycho-Pirate is really Charley Halstead, the Courier linotyper who is Rex Morgan's best friend and was jealous of his success. As Halstead is taken into custody, he vows to have his revenge on the JSA. The Spectre and Starman resign from the Justice Society shortly after this case. Note: Wonder Woman does not appear in this story. [“The Plunder of the Psycho-Pirate,” All-Star Comics #23 (Winter, 1944-1945)]

October 31: Accepted as a candidate for officers' training school, Jim Corrigan decides to allow the Spectre to continue his war on crime by splitting off from him, with the result that he's now always invisible. The invisible Spectre remains in Gotham City and fights crime with the aid of his cat's-paw Percival Popp, acting as a kind of guardian angel. Note: This story is necessarily placed here, since the Spectre is not invisible in any of his JSA cases, requiring that this story and all that follow it take place afterward. [“Crime-Buster by Proxy,” More Fun Comics #90 (April, 1943)]

November, 1944

The Seven Soldiers of Victory attempt to arrest the criminal mastermind called the Barracuda, but find that he and his lieutenants have already fled. Learning that the Barracuda sent out his men to obtain five objects for a crime museum, the heroes each search for the objects in the hopes of finding the Barracuda. The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy head to the Belford Building to find a building block that was once used in a famous prison break, and they fight remote-controlled robots there for the same purpose. The Shining Knight heads to Transparent-Town, also known as the Town of Tomorrow, where he recaptures the glass cup of the Borgias from the Barracuda's men. The Vigilante visits a rubber plantation owned by the recently murdered J. Edwards, where he discovers that a rubber dagger sought by the Barracuda was the murder weapon, used to stab Edwards when it was frozen. The Crimson Avenger and Wing board a hundred-year-old sailing ship called the Sally C, and although they are at first tricked into thinking the Barracuda's men want a spoke from the wheel, they soon discover they seek part of a sail that acted like a big pocket, that once allowed a wanted criminal to hide during a police search at sea. Green Arrow and Speedy capture a group of the Barracuda's men seeking a seemingly cheap iron ring that actually works as a radio, which a crime boss once used to keep in touch with his gang. When the Law's Legionnaires gather once more, they decide to put the objects in a public museum in order to draw the Barracuda out of hiding, and they manage to capture the criminal mastermind despite his taking hostages during his escape attempt. [“Trophies of Crime,” Leading Comics #13 (Winter, 1944-1945)]

December, 1944

1945

Molly Maynne becomes the Harlequin. [All-American Comics #89]

The White School on the multi-dimensional island of Tourmaline is attacked and bombed by a group of former students turned Nazi mystics from Earth-X, members of the Thule Society who seek to use the Clock Tower to conquer parallel universes and other dimensions. To defend itself, the island disappears into the mystical dimension of Darkworld, causing the Nazi mystics to drown in the ocean. Most of the instructors and students are saved, each returning to his or her world of origin and given partial amnesia about the island and the school. [“The Brave and the Bold: Mary Marvel and Atom Blake: Magic and Demons and Ghouls, Oh My!”]

January, 1945

The JSA learns that Sgt. Dick Amber, whom they convinced to join the U.S. Army months earlier, has won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery on the battlefield in Europe. The JSA signs a document called “Formula for a Lasting Peace,” which outlines their ideas to reform the warlike German people. Wildcat and Mister Terrific are present for this meeting only, to help recount their part in Dick Amber's story, but they do not sign the document since they're not full members. The Flash and Green Lantern return to full membership in the JSA at this time. Note: Only the present-day portion of this story takes place at this time. The rest of the story is a retelling of a case that occurs months earlier, in mid-1944. [“This Is Our Enemy,” All-Star Comics #24 (Spring, 1945)]

Percival Popp wears a Spectre costume to stop a gang of crooks attempting to rob a swank Long Island party, while the Spectre invisibly does his fighting for him. [“Crime Cures a Complex,” More Fun Comics #93 (September-October, 1943)]

The Seven Soldiers of Victory, investigating rumors of fictional characters from books come to life, meet an eccentric scientist named Dr. Wimsett, who has discovered a way to chemically cause fictional characters to pop into existence. But several of the characters he's already brought to life have escaped, and only Humpty Dumpty remains behind to tell of their plans. The Law's Legionnaires divide to track down and fight the escaped characters. The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy battle Long John Silver from Treasure Island. Green Arrow and Speedy track down Falstaff from Shakespeare's plays. The Crimson Avenger and Wing foil the schemes of Uriah Heep from David Copperfield and the Old Man of the Sea who was a nemesis of Sinbad the Sailor. The Shining Knight goes in pursuit of the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, who is accompanied by the Cheshire Cat and a lion and a unicorn from Alice in Wonderland. The Vigilante hunts down miniature Lilliputian men from Gulliver's Travels. Finally, the Law's Legionnaires together battle the assembled fictional characters when they attempt to break free, and when Humpty Dumpty accidentally falls upon a tableful of chemicals, he chances upon the exact combination needed to make the fictional characters vanish once more. Note: It's likely that Dr. Wimsett is actually using the same technology to bring fictional characters to life that Funnyface once used in 1942, when he fought Superman by bringing comic-strip characters to life. Possibly Dr. Wimsett was in league with Funnyface and hid his true motivations from the heroes. [“The Bandits from the Books,” Leading Comics #14 (Spring, 1945)]

February, 1945

The Justice Society of America battles the Stalker in an untold case. Rex Tyler becomes Hourman for the first time in two years in order to break up a group of eight Nazi occultists with the help of Doctor Occult, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara the Magician, the Spectre (who is still invisible), and Doctor Fate (who still lacks the Helm of Nabu but is given a mystical replica made by Sargon the Sorcerer and the Spectre to temporarily grant him mystic powers). But when an other-dimensional being called the Stalker arrives, bent on ending all war by eliminating all life, the Spectre, Fate, Zatara, and Sargon are absorbed, while Hourman and Occult barely escape with their lives. Hawkman calls in the entire membership of the JSA to face the Stalker. When the Stalker attacks Washington, D.C., the JSA attacks the Stalker en masse, injuring him enough that he must take time to heal, but he brings the eight dead occultists back to life to act as his disciples and sends them out. Green Lantern and Johnny Thunder defend Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin at the Yalta Conference in the Soviet Union from a disciple with ice powers. Starman and the Atom defeat the radioactive disciple threatening the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Hawkman and Wildcat travel to Angola, where with the help of the Manhunter and the Tigress they stop an animalistic disciple from blowing up Africa by igniting the world's largest underground oilfield. Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl travel to Iwo Jima in the Pacific, where they confront a water-powered disciple with the help of Steve Trevor. Doctor Mid-Nite and Hourman travel to Scotland, where they stop a diseased disciple from unleashing stockpiles of super-anthrax guarded by the U.S. Army. The Flash and Mister Terrific travel to Dresden in Germany, where they battle an explosive disciple amidst the Allied bombing and meet the disguised Tex Thomson, the Americommando. The Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy return to New York City, where they, along with the Star-Spangled Kid, Stripesy, and the King, face an insanity-producing disciple who has caused the city's population to go mad. Superman, Batman, and Robin battle another disciple in the skies who has wind powers. Together, the assembled JSA learns that the Stalker is located in Antarctica, and with the help of the All-Star Squadron they attack the Stalker at his base, where they destroy his engine and finally subdue the Stalker himself, freeing the Spectre, Doctor Fate, Zatara, and Sargon. Note: This story has never been told on Earth-2, but it has been referred to on occasion in Earth-2 stories. Although this story is based on the Justice Society Returns storyline from All-Star Comics v2 #1-2, All-American Comics v2 #1, Adventure Comics v2 #1, Thrilling Comics v2 #1, Sensation Comics v2 #1, Smash Comics v2 #1, National Comics v2 #1, and Star Spangled Comics v2 #1, that story is a Post-Crisis story set in the combined DC Universe in which several details differ somewhat from what occurs on Earth-2, including the erroneous inclusion of a few Quality Comics characters who were actually on Earth-X at this time.

March, 1945

Superman rescues Robin the Boy Wonder, found adrift on a lifeboat, and he learns Robin's secret identity of Dick Grayson (and thus by extension Batman's secret identity of Bruce Wayne). Together, Superman and Robin rescue Batman, who has been trapped in wax in a wax museum run by a criminal called Zoltan. Batman explains that Zoltan has been smuggling scientists to the Axis powers to work against America. After defeating Zoltan and his gang, Superman and Batman vow to work together again, leading to a series of irregular team-ups of the three heroes, Superman, Batman, and Robin. At some point later on, Batman reveals that he has discovered Superman's secret identity. [Superman radio serial (March 2, 1945); “The Secret Origins of the Superman and Batman Team,” World's Finest Comics #271 (September, 1981)]

April, 1945

The Justice Society finds an amnesiac man in their headquarters who just now regained part of his memory during an auto accident, and who claims to know that Rob Victor, a man convicted of murder twenty years ago in 1925, did not kill millionaire Timothy Kimball. The JSAers each take one clue to the man's identity to help him discover who he is so they can clear up the Kimball murder case once and for all. After following up on all the clues, and being attacked by gunmen, the JSA learn that the amnesiac man is Timothy Kimball himself, and that his own cousin, Hengast Kimball, attempted to murder him and pin the blame on Rob Victor, who also returns after being presumed dead for 18 years. [“The Mystery of the Forgotten Crimes,” All-Star Comics #25 (Summer, 1945)]

April 12: President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies of a stroke. Adolf Hitler, learning of Roosevelt's death, believes it is a sign of an eleventh-hour victory for Germany. [“Last Days of the Justice Society of America,” Last Days of the Justice Society Special #1 (1986)]

April 15: The entire assembled membership of the Justice Society of America – the Atom, Batman, Doctor Fate, Doctor Mid-Nite, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Hourman, Mister Terrific, the Sandman, the Spectre, Starman, Superman, Wildcat, and Wonder Woman – attend the funeral of President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Hyde Park, acting as honor guard. Meanwhile, in Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler wields the full power of the Spear of Destiny in an attempt to bring about Götterdämmerung – also known as Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods – to destroy the world and Germany as well, since he thinks the Germans have proven unworthy of him. But the attempt proves to be a failure on this day and on succeeding days. Note: The Spectre is visible in this story because Jim Corrigan was briefly reunited with the Spectre for President Roosevelt's funeral, but the Spectre became invisible once more when Corrigan returned to the U.S. Army. [“Last Days of the Justice Society of America,” Last Days of the Justice Society Special #1 (1986); [“DC Universe: Crawling from the Wreckage, Book 4, Chapter 3: Ragnarok Now”]

April 21: Adolf Hitler finally gives up his attempt to destroy the world with the Spear of Destiny. [“Last Days of the Justice Society of America,” Last Days of the Justice Society Special #1 (1986)]

April 28: Adolf Hitler marries his mistress Eva Braun.

April 30: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide.

May, 1945

May 2: Germany unconditionally surrenders to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe.

May 7: In a laboratory located in Germany's Black Forest, two scientists named Dr. Teufel and Dr. Melch create a super-soldier powerful enough to fight Superman even as the Third Reich is falling to the invading Allied forces. Dr. Melch's son Heinrich Melch is granted great strength through a green meteorite (which, unknown to anyone at the time, is kryptonite) found by Teufel, which causes Heinrich to glow green at first until he controls his radiation. Dr. Teufel gives Heinrich a lead-lined orange and yellow costume and dubs the young man <font color=“#38761d”>Atoman</font>. But Nazi Germany surrenders the war the very next day, and Heinrich instead travels to Metropolis in the United States, where he eventually joins the Daily Star as its newest reporter, Henry Miller. [Superman radio serial (October 11-December 3, 1945; “The Secret Origins of the Superman and Batman Team,” World's Finest Comics #271 (September, 1981)]

Neptune Perkins and Hawkman first team up; capture a gang of criminals [Flash Comics #66]

June, 1945

The members of the Seven Soldiers of Victory are each summoned in various ways by a pink-haired, elflike imp named Willie Wisher, who can make anything come true by wishing for it. After making newsreel producer John Shoman and his cameramen show up, Willie Wisher sends them all to the Land of Magic for an adventure. The Shining Knight finds himself outside the castle of the wizard Surlin, and after the hero charges in to rescue a damsel, he ends up fighting his own exact double from the magic mirror, then learns he is mistaken about the wizard and returns home through the magic mirror. Green Arrow and Speedy enter Father Time's Inn, where they break up a fight between the heavenly bodies and must outwit Father Time, but it's not until they solve the earlier quarrel that Father Time rewards them by sending them home on a comet. The Crimson Avenger and Wing discover two kinds of water, one that makes them big and one that makes them small, but when they are invited in for dinner with a group of kings, one king causes all the other to shrink by spiking their drinks with the shrinking water, and the heroes must outwit him before walking home past the Enchanted Forest. The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy meet a bunch of surly talking anthropomorphic animals, and they teach them a lesson by sending talking furniture to fight them, then accept a ride back home from a talking whale. The Vigilante finds himself in the middle of a battlefield between two armies of little people, the Gnufs and the Foophs, who are fighting for a nonsensical reason but only fight by trying to scare each other; discovering that everyone in the land can change their shape just by willing it, Vigilante changes into a giant housefly and scares both armies, thus winning and ending the war, then returns home by stretching himself through the cracks in the ground. The assembled Law's Legionnaires then confront Willie Wisher and manage to cause him to disappear by making him feel guilty. Sometime later, John Shoman shows his newsreel footage of the entire adventure. After this case, the Seven Soldiers of Victory disband. [“Land of Magic,” Adventure Comics #438 (March-April, 1975), “Knight After Knight,” Adventure Comics #438 (March-April, 1975), “Father Time's Inn,” Adventure Comics #439 (May-June, 1975), “Kings Make a Full House,” Adventure Comics #440 (July, 1975), “Dead End Animals,” Adventure Comics #441 (September, 1975), “Gnome Man's Land,” Adventure Comics #442 (November-December, 1975), and “Confrontation,” Adventure Comics #443 (January-February, 1976)]

Percival Popp is hired to watch over the Paul Binny cartoon studio, which created cartoon figures Rollin' Rodent, Willie Wolf, and Dinky the Elephant. [“Cartoons of Crime,” More Fun Comics #98 (July-August, 1944)]

July, 1945

Hawkman invites to a JSA meeting scientist Herbert Crawford, who claims that a living metallic spacecraft supposedly from Jupiter filled with tiny robot-like beings, all of which have the power to consume other metals, is heading toward Earth, and the Justice Society must find a way to stop them. But after Crawford doesn't show up, the JSA learns of strange occurrences that indicate the metal men have already landed on Earth, and they each investigate the catastrophes brought on by the aliens. Hawkman travels to Silverland City, where the metal men have begun absorbing silver from a mine and have grown large and silvery, then become dangerous conductors of electricity and strangely begin robbing, but Hawkman defeats them by throwing copper pennies at them, short-circuiting their bodies and killing them instantly. The Atom faces iron metal men and defeats them with high-pressure oxygen, which causes the iron in their structures to rust. Green Lantern fights magnesium metal men at the Ute Factory, and he destroys them by causing them to flare up after luring them safely outside. Doctor Mid-Nite faces copper metal men in Smithville, whom he tricks by substituting copper with painted lead, giving them lead-poisoning. The Flash faces gold metal men in the Metropolis Museum, defeating them by twisting their bodies at super-speed into formless shapes, since they are now as malleable as pure gold. Johnny Thunder investigates the crashed living Jovian spaceship in Alaska and is unable to stop it from growing as the sharklike ship eats everything it touches. The Thunderbolt gathers the entire JSA there, and they are able to defeat the Jovian ship by altering its chemical composition until it becomes weak and dies. Returning to JSA Headquarters, the team find Herbert Crawford, who changes color and attacks the heroes with great power, having gained all the powers (and weaknesses) of the metal men. After he's defeated, Crawford confesses that he signaled the metal men, telling them where to find huge metal deposits, and the grateful metal men told him how to receive metal characteristics and even stole for him. Note: There is no evidence, just conjecture, that the metal men actually come from Jupiter, so they could have come from another star system, or even another galaxy. [“Vampires of the Void,” All-Star Comics #26 (Fall, 1945)]

July 16: Doris Lee receives a telepathic message from Doris Knight of an alternate future, warning her not to let Ted Knight continue as Starman after their wedding, or he'll die. [“Starman: Times Past, 1948: Give Up the Stars”]

August, 1945

The Spectre has his last case with Percival Popp. Note: Sometime after this story, Percival Popp (J. Percival Poplaski) discovers that he has a daughter named Nelly, who was born in Cliffland in 1943 to his short-lived girlfriend, Bubbles Twinkletoes. Returning to Cliffland, Percival marries Bubbles, who forces him to shut down his private investigation business and get a job as a security guard at an office building. Percival helps raise his daughter Nelly Poplaski, and after he discovers that she has powers, he keeps it a secret from her mother and eventually creates the short-lived identity of the Spectress for her in 1956, when she is nearly thirteen years old. [“The Unsafe Safe,” More Fun Comics #101 (January-February, 1945)]

August 14:

America celebrates V-J Day after the official surrender of Japan to the Allies.

The Spectre rejoins Jim Corrigan's body and regains the ability to become visible once more. Soon, the Spectre reunites with Dr. Kent Nelson, who becomes Doctor Fate for the occasion, and they uncover a plot by the alien Cerberons to artificially evolve all of mankind to a supposed higher state. [“Tomorrow's Gods and Demons,” Wonder Woman #242 (April, 1978)]

While Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor are celebrating V-J Day, Steve is abducted by a spacecraft. Traveling to Paradise Island, Wonder Woman learns from Queen Hippolyta that Steve Trevor has been transformed, evolved into the Ultimate Man by an alien race called the Cerberons, who have watched mankind enter its nuclear age and are alarmed. The Ultimate Man begins evolving others like himself at an exponential rate. Doctor Fate and the Spectre contact Hippolyta to tell her not to summon her daughter back to Paradise Island. Wonder Woman manages to convince the watching Cerberons to reverse the false evolution and restore everyone to normal. Note: The appearance of Gen. Blankenship and Etta Candy in this story are fictional. Doctor Fate is incorrectly depicted as wearing the Helm of Nabu rather than the half-helm he occasionally stilled donned at this time, after his retirement. The appearance of the Spectre in this story indicates that it takes place after he has been reunited with Jim Corrigan's body but before the arrival of Azmodeus. [“Tomorrow's Gods and Demons,” Wonder Woman #242 (April, 1978)]

The All-Star Squadron disbands at some point after the official end of World War II.

August 21:

Ex-football player Fred Monday, who has a crippled brother named Jimmy, and who lost his own arm in World War II, contacts the Justice Society to help out six handicapped children with whom Jimmy has corresponded. The JSA members let their young charges help them in a campaign against local criminals. Hawkman travels to the bayous of Louisiana, where he receives the help of young Edouard Laviere, who is a victim of infantile paralysis and uses a wheelchair and crutches, against the Water Robbers gang. Doctor Mid-Nite visits the Northwest, where he is assisted by the completely blind Hal Porowski against men sabotaging his father's lumber company. Green Lantern heads for New Mexico, where he is helped by Sven Lindquist, who has an artificial arm, against a group of crooks preying upon people's superstitions. Wildcat (filling in for the absent Atom) visits Big City, where he is helped by the deaf Anthony Cellini to take down a gang of racketeers. Johnny Thunder goes out west, where Tommy O'Leary, who stutters uncontrollably, helps him foil the Bad Buttes Gang. The Flash is in Hollywood, where he is assisted by Billy Yancey, a spastic young unpublished script writer, to take down the gang using Billy's plots to commit ingenious crimes. As the JSAers regather and meet Fred and Jimmy Monday, Jimmy suggests the Justice Society enact a pledge to treat handicapped people as equals rather than pity them. Note: This story takes place shortly after V-J Day in August, 1945, according to Wonder Woman #243. Also according to that story, Wonder Woman didn't take part in any of the action, though she was present at the first meeting in this story. [“A Place in the World,” All-Star Comics #27 (Winter, 1945-1946)]

The Angle Man from Earth-1 in the 1980s arrives on Earth-2 in 1945. At the conclusion of the JSA's latest case, Wonder Woman and the Spectre are visiting with the team. Wonder Woman then heads back to Washington, D.C., to fight the Earth-1 Angle Man. Meanwhile, on Earth-1 in the 1980s, Wonder Woman discovers that Angle Man and his Angler are missing, and she is transported to Earth-2 in 1945. The two Wonder Women team up to capture the Angle Man, then the Earth-1 Wonder Woman causes the Earth-2 Wonder Woman along with Steve Trevor and Etta Candy to forget about meeting her, before she returns to Earth-1 in the 1980s with the Angle Man. Note: This story takes place immediately after All-Star Comics #27. [“Tomorrow's Gods and Demons,” Wonder Woman #242 (April, 1978); “The Five-Sided Square,” Wonder Woman #243 (May, 1978)]

September, 1945

When the evil astral being Azmodus arrives on Earth from the astral world of Tholagga and takes a human host, some cosmic fluke causes both Azmodus and the Spectre to be trapped in their human hosts for the next two decades. The Spectre now finds himself entirely unable to leave or separate from Corrigan's body. Note: The name of Azmodus' original human host remains unknown. [“War That Shook the Universe,” Showcase #60 (January-February, 1966)]

October, 1945

Stretch Skinner briefly becomes Tomcat. [Sensation #49]

November, 1945

November 27: Starman has his last case in Opal City. After this case, he retires in order to marry his fiancee Doris Lee as Ted Knight. [“The Meteor Mob,” Adventure Comics #102 (February-March, 1946)]

Heinrich Miller, having joined the Daily Star as reporter Henry Miller, battles Superman as Atoman, using his kryptonite radiation to weaken Superman. In their last showdown, the Atoman apparently dies, and Superman dresses him in the lead-lined orange and yellow costume he found, then buries him in a lead-lined coffin in the cornerstone of the newly constructed Victory Building in Metropolis. [Superman radio serial (October 11-December 3, 1945; “The Secret Origins of the Superman and Batman Team,” World's Finest Comics #271 (September, 1981)]

Wesley Dodds (the Sandman) suffers his first heart attack, and he and Sandy Hawkins are forced to retire from crime-fighting as the Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy. Over the next year and a half, Wes spends much of his time in his laboratory inventing various weapons and equipment for his eventual return to crime-fighting, including a silicoid gun and a prototype sand-gun. Sandy, meanwhile, finishes high school and goes on to college. [“Hostile Witness,” America Vs. the Justice Society #3 (March, 1985)]

1946

February, 1946

Months earlier, during an archaeological expedition on an island, classical art expert Nels Farrow unearths six jars of magical paint with the power to make anything he paints come to life, but only at night. Discovering that the paint is one of the great secrets of ancient Atlantis, he uses it months later to create six paintings of evil men to gain revenge for him on five college classmates who have surpassed him, and on the archaeologist who fired him after he stole the jars of paint, and he mails them out to his victims. But when a car accident immediately afterward causes him to have a change of heart on his deathbed, he calls on the Justice Society to save the men he has marked for death. Hawkman sets out for ruins in the jungle to save archaeologist Hank Kavanaugh from mobsters out of a painting, while simultaneously hiding invaluable Atlantean treasures, including a piece that might be a Rosetta stone key to an ancient Atlantean language. Green Lantern flies to the African veldt to save hunter/trapper Elbert Jenkins from several historical fighters out of a painting. Doctor Mid-Nite flies to Alaska to save gold miner Greg Scallop from knights out of a painting. Johnny Thunder heads to the cruise ship S.S. Headliner to save Captain Ira Haggard from armed cowboy mermen riding flying seahorses. The Atom goes out west to save oil tycoon Black Jack Cassidy from Moors out of a painting. The Flash heads to the Farnum and Daley Circus in the Midwest to save circus owner Josh Mason from cavemen and prehistoric beasts out of a painting. Each of the JSAers take the now-blank canvases with them to their headquarters, forcing the paint-beings to follow them to return before dawn into the paintings. Then the JSAers painstakingly scrape off the magic paint and put it back into the jars, which they hermetically seal. Wonder Woman, having been called in, takes down the entire story, and the JSA places that story as a warning with the jars, which they bury. The jars remain buried for 10,000 years before being briefly uncovered, then buried again without being used. [“The Paintings that Walked the Earth,” All-Star Comics #28 (April-May, 1946)]

Hawkman &amp; Hawkgirl befriend the winged inhabitants of the hidden city of Feithera in Greenland. [Flash Comics #71]

March, 1946

April, 1946

A man from the year 2446 in the 25th century named Landor, who is a throwback craving adventure, has been stranded in the 20th century by a defective time machine. He uses his knowledge from 500 years in the future to make deadly devices from commonplace objects, challenging the Justice Society to stop him at six different places. Landor and his new gang battle each of the JSA members, and Landor escapes each time, until he arranges for Johnny Thunder to capture him so Landor can destroy the Justice Society in one fell swoop with his flashlight-disintegrator. But at JSA Headquarters the Flash uses his super-speed to disarm Landor, and Green Lantern destroys the flashlight. Then, with Landor's permission, the JSA sends him back to the 25th century via Green Lantern's ring, a process that takes hours of trying before it works. Back in the future, Landor decides he's happy to stay there for good. [“The Man Who Knows Too Much,” All-Star Comics #29 (June-July, 1946)]

May, 1946

June, 1946

Deceiving the Justice Society into thinking they are taking part in an experiment to unlock the potential of Man's unconscious through dreaming, the Brain Wave induces dreams in the JSA members which are specifically designed to drive them mad. Hawkman is plunged into a dream in which anthropomorphic ice cubes and lighters are at war, with hapless birds caught in the middle. Doctor Mid-Nite is thrust into a dream in which giant anthropomorphic germs study humans like humans study germs, and he becomes a living disease. Green Lantern is placed into a zany world in which old astronomers study sparks as if they were stars, the constellation Gemini is two little boys, and he is the sun. The Flash finds himself in a world of anthropomorphic animals who keep humans as pets, and who laugh at the idea that humans can talk. The Atom makes his way through a world populated by walking, talking clocks, where he shrinks, then grows, then becomes a sponge. Johnny Thunder is in the land of Already Equipped, where everyone is equipped with whatever they need for their jobs, such as a writer having a typewriter for a head, and unlike the other JSAers. The JSAers then awake with false beliefs about themselves, as they've all gone insane, except for Johnny Thunder, who has become sensible for the first time in his life. As the Brain Wave brings in gangsters to show off what he's done to the JSA, Johnny attacks, while the Thunderbolt brings the JSA out of their madness. As the Brain Wave and the gangsters are captured, Johnny is struck in the head, and when he awakes, he's back to normal. [“The Dreams of Madness,” All-Star Comics #30 (August-September, 1946)]

Dick Grayson and Sandy Hawkins each graduate from high school.

July, 1946

Mister Terrific travels to Germany in search of the missing Tex Thomson (Mister America/Americommando), where he defeats and arrests Baron Blitzkrieg for his war crimes with the help of Thomson, who is disguised as the Iron Claw. The two then free a few international heroes (Fireball of the U.S.S.R., Kuei of China, and Phantasmo of France – three members of the wartime Young Allies team) with the help of anti-Nazi German heroine Red Eagle, who also frees her captive husband, Black Eagle. [“Mister Terrific: Times Past, 1946: American Heroes”]

August, 1946

Three of the Duna, a race of beings from a faraway planet whose bodies are glowing globes of mental energy, summon the Justice Society together and tell them that Zor, a renegade of their race, has taken possession of an Earthman's body and is using it to facilitate strange crimes involving advanced technology. The Justice Society agrees to find and stop Zor by investigating the strange crimes taking place across America. Hawkman investigates a series of crimes involving an antigravity beam. Doctor Mid-Nite investigates crimes committed by crooks wearing clothing that makes them invisible. Green Lantern investigates crimes seemingly committed by crooks given all the qualities of statues come to life, including those of Thor, Samson, and Achilles. The Atom investigates a gang of crooks using shoes enabling them to walk up walls. Johnny Thunder and his Thunderbolt look into a gang using a jet-propelled submarine with perfect vertical movement. The Flash investigates crimes by crooks using the borer, a machine that can tunnel through anything. After each JSAer has learned that Zor is in the body of an old toymaker named Willie Wonder, the team, along with the three Duna, converge on his toy shop. While the Justice Society overcomes the crooks there, the Duna extract Zor from Willie Wonder and take him back to their world, leaving Willie unharmed. [“The Workshop of Willie Wonder,” All-Star Comics #31 (October-November, 1946)]

September, 1946

Sandy Hawkins begins attending Columbia University.

October, 1946

In prison, the Psycho-Pirate's cellmate Big Mike talks him into breaking both of them out of jail by playing on the guard's emotions, then into helping him begin an emotion-based crime spree over the next few weeks. Finally, Big Mike – who was once put in jail by the JSA – challenges the Justice Society of America to stop the Psycho-Pirate's six emotion-based crimes by giving them clues. Hawkman tackles a crime based on pride. Doctor Mid-Nite stops a crime based on ambition. Green Lantern faces a crime based on envy. The Atom takes on a crime based on curiosity. Johnny Thunder foils a crime based on humility. The Flash puts an end to a crime based on anger. Finally, the Justice Society converges on the Psycho-Pirate and Big Mike and arrests them both. [“The Return of the Psycho-Pirate,” All-Star Comics #32 (December, 1946-January, 1947)]

November, 1946

December, 1946

Solomon Grundy, Green Lantern's monstrous enemy, is freed of his power-bubble prison by a lightning bolt and begins a trek across the continent to attack his enemy. When the Justice Society members discover that the monster was in their own headquarters, and Green Lantern is missing, they each head out to one of the several places Grundy struck in order to stop him and rescue Green Lantern. Hawkman visits Harford and Regis, Doctor Mid-Nite visits Carver and a nearby forest, Johnny Thunder visits Dander and Zenith, the Flash visits Alcona and Moosehead, and the Atom heads to Lynneville and Lambert City. Each of the JSAers face Solomon Grundy, except for Johnny Thunder, who stops a Grundy impersonator, and the incidents act as turning points in several citizens' lives in those towns. Meanwhile, before all this Green Lantern headed out to Arizona to search for Grundy and was the one who predicted that the monster would be in all of the above towns, anonymously sending out the radio message to the JSA with the information that had set them on the monster's trail. Finally, having calculated where Solomon Grundy would be next, Green Lantern confronts him at State Park, where they battle. The JSAers, each having followed the trail, converge on State Park just in time to stop the monster from killing Green Lantern. Since Solomon Grundy escaped his prison on Earth once before, Green Lantern imprisons the monster in an energy bubble on the Moon. [“The Revenge of Solomon Grundy,” All-Star Comics #33 (February-March, 1947)]

1947

February, 1947

The Wizard, a criminal super-magician, is convinced that the Justice Society is really a gang of criminals posing as heroes in order to pull off a colossal theft sometime in the future. When they protest that they have no such plans, he challenges them to prove their heroism by foiling five crimes which are soon to be committed. After the JSAers foil the Wizard's crimes, they learn his origin, and he escapes, astonished that the Justice Society is really what it claims to be. By the time of this story, the Justice Society has moved its headquarters to Gotham City. [“The Wiles of the Wizard,” All-Star Comics #34 (April-May, 1947)]

March, 1947

Wesley Dodds, seeking to become the Sandman once more after being forced to retire in 1945 due to a heart attack, completes the silicoid gun, a weapon meant to double his crime-fighting effectiveness. But when Sandman throws the activator switch, a faulty fuse causes the silicoid gun to explode, catching both the Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy in the explosion. Sandy, who was closer to the explosion, suddenly transforms into an insane silicoid monster bent on conquering the world. But the side-effect from the explosion soon knocks the transformed Sandy out, and the Sandman imprisons the monstrous Sandy in a gas-filled, glass chamber with a velvet-sheeted bed that keeps him unconscious and as comfortable as possible. Unknown to the Sandman, Sandy's insanity was only temporary, and he regains his senses within hours but is unable to tell Sandman about it due to the physically disabling effects of the gas. Wesley's obsession with curing Sandy's monstrous condition consumes his time for years, so that he's unable to operate as the Sandman. Note: The silicoid gun accident takes place during spring break. [“The Creature in the Velvet Cage,” Justice League of America #113 (September-October, 1974)]

April, 1947

Prof. Malachi Zee, having invented the time cabinet, permitting travel through time itself, is shot by his new assistant Per Degaton, who has the ambition to conquer the world. Shooting Prof. Zee and stealing the time cabinet, he causes time itself to change, which results in all modern inventions vanishing from the 20th century except those kept in Degaton's own possession in the historic Colossal Caves, giving him a technological advantage over everyone. The Justice Society learn the truth from Prof. Zee in the hospital, but after he is shot again, the Flash races to save his life by locating penicillin, which can only be found in a time capsule in this time-altered world. The Atom, encountering Degaton and his men robbing a bank in Gotham City, learn that the villain changed time by altering a battle. Hawkman rescues Gotham's mayor after he is kidnapped by Degaton's lieutenant, Kale. Doctor Mid-Nite rescues a group of scientists gathering at Gotham University, who want to rebuild all the technology lost in the change from scratch. Prof. Zee, awake once more in the hospital, tells the JSA that Per Degaton must have altered the outcome of the Battle of Arbela in 331 B.C. by causing Alexander the Great to lose to the Persians led by Darius III. Green Lantern attempts to recover the time cabinet from Degaton's hideout in Colossal Caves, but he is instead sent 10 years forward in time to the year 1957. There Green Lantern learns from the outlawed Justice Society that Per Degaton controls the world. But Green Lantern uses his ring to send himself and the other Justice Society members of 1957 back in time to fight on the side of Alexander the Great, defeating the opposing Persians who are helped by Degaton's men, and thus correcting the flow of time. Now, with the past corrected, all the events that happened are erased, with the Justice Society retaining no memory or memento of this case except a shield that Alexander gave them in gratitude. Only when the JSA later views the shield's history using Wonder Woman's borrowed Magic Sphere do they learn how Per Degaton altered history itself before they changed it back again. Per Degaton, still Prof. Zee's assistant and retaining no memory of his time-altering actions, dreams that he was ruler of the world. [“The Day that Dropped Out of Time,” All-Star Comics #35 (June-July, 1947)]

May, 1947

Dinah Drake becomes Black Canary in Gotham City, posing as a female Robin Hood who acts like a criminal but steals only from real criminals. Originally she wears a mask.

The Justice Society, using the Magic Sphere, learn about a forgotten case in which Per Degaton changed history. [“The Day that Dropped Out of Time,” All-Star Comics #35 (June-July, 1947)]

Johnny Thunder, while still in Gotham City after a JSA meeting, first meets the Black Canary. The Thunderbolt stops responding every time that Johnny calls for his help, and Johnny soon finds his T-bolt too unreliable to call, explaining several subsequent adventures in which the Thunderbolt does not appear. [“The Black Canary,” Flash Comics #86 (August, 1947)]

Ted Grant (Wildcat) and his girlfriend Irina have a son, Jake, who is kidnapped shortly after birth by Wildcat's old enemy, the Yellow Wasp. Neither the child nor the Yellow Wasp are ever seen again. [Secret Origins #50]

Wesley Dodds tears to ribbons his yellow and purple Sandman costume, reminding him too much of what he'd had to do to Sandy Hawkins, and he returns to his original green-suited, purple-caped costume with a yellow-and-blue gas mask and an orange hat. Wesley Dodds tells most his friends in the JSA that Sandy Hawkins has left New York City to make his own way in the world, rather than admit the truth, though he does end up telling a couple of friends like Rex Tyler (Hourman) and Lee Travis (Crimson Avenger) the truth. The Sandman, in his original outfit, puts away the top gang boss in New York City, “Snooze” Simpson, in his first solo case in years, but he has no other cases after this. [“The Creature in the Velvet Cage,” Justice League of America #113 (September-October, 1974); “Whatever Happened to the Sandman?” DC Comics Presents #42 (February, 1982)]

June, 1947

To revenge himself on five ex-fraternity brothers who traumatized him, Calvin Stymes causes the quintet during a hunting party to be immersed for 12 hours in the waters of Koehaha, which do not drown their victims (as it contains free oxygen) but wash away their consciences (since it contains traces of a rare drug called Habis Indica). Three days later, the Justice Society meets to deal with five brand-new master criminals plaguing the nation, having been warned of their identities via an anonymous note. The Batman, taking the Atom's place, travels to Zenith to battle a master criminal called the Grim Marauder, who is really Ed Findley, a private detective. The Flash visits Snow City, where he battles a ruthless blackmailer called Mister X, who is really Mat Matwell, a reporter. Hawkman travels to New Mexico, where he battles a tomb-thief called the Black Rider, who is really Arch Erdner, an archaeologist. Doctor Mid-Nite visits an eastern city to stop a mad scientist with a gold-magnet who turns out to be Prof. Saul Philpotts. Superman (filling in for Johnny Thunder), visits Centropolis, where he wrecks the plans of the Wrecker, who is really Ben Stanley, an architect. Wonder Woman gathers the Justice Society and the five new criminals together, where Green Lantern explains that he traveled to Milville in search of the sixth man, Calvin Stymes, who reveals how, twenty years ago at college, the five men terrified Stymes to teach him a lesson, causing him to have both a heavy stutter and prematurely white hair and shattering his dreams of becoming a criminal lawyer, so he arranged for the five men to commit crimes so they would be sent to jail. But after the five men escape from JSA Headquarters, they return to the Koehaha in order to drink from its waters again, not knowing that Stymes plans to kill them all with a bomb. The Justice Society saves the five men but fail to save Stymes, who is crushed by boulders when his bomb goes off. The Flash cures the five men, the JSA vows to testify on their behalf, and Superman blocks off the Koehaha stream forever. Note: It's likely that Johnny Thunder wasn't really ill at the time, but knew he was unable to summon the Thunderbolt at this time, explaining why he asked Superman to attend the meeting in his place. [“Five Drowned Men,” All-Star Comics #36 (August-September, 1947)]

Green Lantern has first clash with the Harlequin (Molly Maynne). [All-American Comics #89]

July, 1947

August, 1947

The Wizard challenges the nation and the Justice Society by assembling an Injustice Society of the World and liberating convicts from prisons all over the country to join in an attempted coup against the government. [“The Injustice Society of the World,” All-Star Comics #37 (October-November, 1947)]

September, 1947

October, 1947

October 25: The Justice Society members try to figure out what is behind the spate of murders in Gotham City apparently committed by great villains of history, and are themselves killed one by one by the historical nemesis himself. [“History's Crime Wave,” All-Star Comics #38 (December, 1947-January, 1948)]

November, 1947

December, 1947

When a woman gains the magical power to make her voiced wishes come true and accidentally kills her boss with it, she appeals to the Justice Society for help. The heroes find a secret entrance to Fairyland, and try to overthrow the Lorelei who rules it tyrannically. Johnny Thunder quits the Justice Society after this story, and the Black Canary takes his place on the team. [All-Star Comics #39]

1948

The multi-dimensional island of Tourmaline emerges into the physical realm from the Darkworld, appearing as a seemingly new island in the South Pacific simultaneously on Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-S, Earth-X, and Earth-4. Gareth Gallowglass, a 12-year-old psychic prodigy from Earth-1, takes up residence on the island, now called Grim Island, after his fellow Sentinels of Magic of Earth-1 are killed protecting the five Earths from being invaded by Hell. [“Showcase: The Sentinels of Magic: Times Past, 1948: Sacrifices Must Be Made”]

February, 1948

The JSA tackles the problem of juvenile delinquency when they tangle with the Crimson Claw and his mob, while the Junior Justice Society battle the Junior Crimson Claws. [All-Star Comics #40]

April, 1948

The Wizard forms a new Injustice Society and, to determine which of them will be the leader, has them stage competitive thefts of American patriotic objects such as the Freedom Train, Plymouth Rock, Old Ironsides, and the Washington Monument. The Justice Society has been given amnesia by a mind-eraser machine, and seems powerless to cope with the crimes. At the conclusion of this case, the JSA votes Black Canary in as a permanent member, after she's worked alongside them during for the last few cases. [All-Star Comics #41]

May, 1948

The Atom begins wearing a new costume based on Cyclotron's costume, while the effects of his 1942 exposure to Cyclotron finally result in his gaining super-strength now. [Flash Comics #98]

A Spanish scholar who survived for over 400 years by means of the Elixir of Youth reveals the secret of the Four Wonders of Alchemy to the Justice Society just before he dies. Unfortunately, he is also overheard by Prof. Zobar Zodiak, who beats the heroes to the four objects, kidnaps the JSAers, and affixes them powerless to the blades of a fan in perpetual motion. [All-Star Comics #42]

Lily DeLuna graduates from Opal City University with a major in journalism.

June, 1948

July, 1948

The JSA almost used as a pawn by three long-lived villains (The Shade, the Ghost, and Blue Lama) to recover the ruby of a fourth, Septimus Graham, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 but survived to the present, as part of a plan hatched in 1850 – when all four rubies are together at the time of a certain comet whose return was scheduled for 1948, whoever had them all would receive great power. The JSA stops them. [“Justice Society of America: Times Past, 1948: Trail of the Ruby”]

August, 1948

The Justice Society follows some metal-hard robbers to another dimension, in which life is based on gold, rather than carbon. [All-Star Comics #43]

September, 1948

When a star-masked racketeer who calls himself Evil Star terrorizes Stellar Studios, demanding they stop work on their latest movie, Thief in the Night, studio owner Frank T. Fanum calls in the Justice Society to help protect him. [All-Star Comics #44]

October, 1948

October 26: A giant menace called the Nebula-Man (the transformed Dr. Wilfred Gwythyr Doome) walks over the world, conquering everyone who tries to stop him, and killing many people. Finally, the Seven Soldiers of Victory come out of retirement to stop the Nebula-Man in the Himalayas near Mount Everest. The Seven Soldiers battle the Nebula-Man, giving them enough time to complete the Nebula-Rod, which gathers nebuloid-energy from space to channel against the opposing nebula threat. Wing How uses the new secret weapon to destroy the Nebula-Man, sacrificing his life in the process, though in reality he is taken to the Nebula-Man's realm. Holy men from a nearby temple who witnessed the battle place Wing's body in a grave. The destruction of the Nebula-Man causes each of the Seven Soldiers of Victory to be sent into a different era in the past. Note: It is not known if the Hand had anything to do with the appearance of the Nebula-Man, but he eventually learned how to create his own construction of nebuloid-energy, since he threatens the Earth with it in 1972. [“The Unknown Soldier of Victory,” Justice League of America #100 (August, 1972).]

Wesley Dodds, the former Sandman, later begins searching for his missing friend Lee Travis (the Crimson Avenger) but is unsuccessful.

November, 1948

The Justice Society must find a way to capture a gang of crooks wielding weapons charged with the energy of nova stars. The Justice Society has changed its headquarters to Civic City by this story. [All-Star Comics #45]

December 8: Doris Knight finally tells her husband Ted Knight (Starman) why she asked him to retire as Starman when they were married, and he agrees to remain in retirement for the near future. [“Starman: Times Past, 1948: Give Up the Stars”]

Lois 4XR, descendant of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, visits from the future and has a brief career as Superwoman. [Superman #57]

Taking a special elective course at university, Lily DeLuna meets famous newswomen Lois Lane and Libby Lawrence (Liberty Belle). Note: The Huntress and the Sportsmaster, having first met in early 1948, are now a couple. This story takes place several weeks after the November, 1948, election, but before the college Christmas break. Lily DeLuna already graduated in May, 1948, so she is taking this special course purely for interest's sake. [“The Brave and the Bold: Lois Lane and Liberty Belle: Times Past, 1948: Women of Journalism”]

1949

January, 1949

The Flash has last solo case. [Flash Comics #104]

The Justice Society sets out to track down the members of the Invisible Band, a gang of thieves who pull spectacular robberies but are never seen doing so. At the conclusion of this case, the JSA relocates its headquarters to another building in Civic City. Note: Part of this story supposedly takes place during Mardi Gras, which in 1949 begins on March 1, but this is most likely a chronicler's error. [All-Star Comics #46]

February, 1949

The Justice Society is faced with a Western-style outlaw who claims to be the original Billy the Kid. Note: This story indicates that Civic City is somewhere in the Midwest, not far from the old frontier. [All-Star Comics #47]

March, 1949

Jay Garrick marries Joan Williams. [Flash #134]

Edmund Blake, a gravely ill young boy, may not survive an operation to come unless his heroes, the Justice Society, turn up to rouse him from his depression and revive his will to live. They do so by showing him scenes of his future life in the Magic Sphere, while tracking down the X-Criminal Band. [All-Star Comics #48]

April, 1949

April 28: The Justice Society must fight a race of Fire People from a comet, who intend to rob Earth of its radium and inadvertently wipe humanity off the face of the planet. Note: A newspaper in this story places it in April, 1950, but it must actually be April, 1949. [All-Star Comics #49]

May, 1949

At the Flash's tenth college graduation anniversary, the Justice Society finds they must capture Mister Alpha, a new villain (and Jay Garrick's classmate, Fred Kincaid) who intends to use the five sciences he learned in college to commit foolproof crimes. [All-Star Comics #50]

June, 1949

The Justice Society finds that a scientist's warning of Diamond Men erupting from below Earth's surface is accurate, and that the Diamond Men will soon strike at three sites. [All-Star Comics #51]

July, 1949

The Justice Society disappears from the world for a year after the emergence of four ancient kings with great telepathic might from an archaeological dig; the Four Kings – Mr. Prince, Mr. Monarch, the Masked One, and Mr. Crown – place the JSA in suspended animation and put into motion a scheme to take over the planet. The current members of the Justice Society (Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Doctor Mid-Nite, the Atom, and Black Canary) are kept in suspended animation for a whole year, and their absence is largely ignored due to the telepathic control the Four Kings have over the world. [“The Secret Conquest of the Earth,” All-Star Comics #52 (April-May, 1950)]

Senor Prince infiltrates a great South American republic and founds a new political war party called the Blue Shirts.

Mr. Monarch infiltrates a nation in southeastern Europe (probably Italy or Yugoslavia) and founds a new political party called the Gladiators.

In a country in Northern Africa ruled by a sultan (probably Egypt), the Masked One founds a small but determined war party called the Cavaliers.

In the United States, Mr. Crown founds the Swordsmen Party and begins warning the government about a secret enemy threatening America, urging a preemptive strike. In reality, the “secret enemy” are the American people themselves, who are placed in the grip of paranoia, seeing enemies in every corner. This coincides with the so-called Red Scare, which runs from 1947 to 1954.